Let me explain why I am doing this. At the beginning of this year I changed the way that I was doing a part of my devotion. I have been reading or listening to the entire Bible for a number of years, and at the beginning of this year I changed to just read through the four gospels again and again as the year went on and then read through the book of Psalms, on Psalm at a time. Well after reading through the book of Psalms I decided to look at my Spiritual Diaries that I wrote while studying the book of Psalms. A few days ago I began to read through my Spiritual Diary that was about Psalm 18, which is a rather long Psalm, as it has fifty verses in it. This Psalm was written by David right after he became King of the Southern part of Israel. I hope that this Psalm will be meaningful to all who read through it, as meaningful as it was to me.
1/5/2012 9:09:28 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: David’s Victory Psalm
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 18:1-50
Message of the verses: Psalm 18 is a fairly long psalm with
fifty verses in it and so I will not put the psalm at the beginning of this SD
as I have been doing, but will insert it into the different reference points
from the outline.
The psalm can also be seen in
2Samuel chapter twenty-two. This psalm
was written after David had been named king over all of Israel. After the death of Saul David was named king
over Judah and Benjamin and then seven years later he was named king over all
of Israel and it was at that time of his life that he wrote Psalm 18. This psalm is a worship and witness psalm in
that David worships the Lord in parts of it and also wittiness about the
goodness of the Lord in other parts.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes at the end of his introduction to this psalm these words: “The focus of the psalm is on the Lord and
what He graciously did for His servant, but it also tells us what He can do for
us today if we will trust and obey.”
God Delivers When We Call on Him (vv.
1-18): “1 ¶ «For the choir director. A Psalm of David the
servant of the LORD, who spoke to the LORD the words of this song in the day
that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand
of Saul. And he said,» "I love You, O LORD, my strength." 2 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. 3 I call upon
the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies. 4 The cords of death encompassed me, And the torrents
of ungodliness terrified me. 5 The cords
of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried to my God for
help; He heard my voice
out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked; And
the foundations of the mountains were trembling And were shaken, because He was
angry. 8 Smoke went up out of His
nostrils, And fire from His mouth devoured; Coals were kindled by it. 9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down With
thick darkness under His feet. 10 He
rode upon a cherub and flew; And He sped upon the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy
around Him, Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. 12 From the brightness before Him passed His
thick clouds, Hailstones and coals of fire. 13
The LORD also thundered in the heavens, And the Most High uttered His
voice, Hailstones and coals of fire. 14
He sent out His arrows, and scattered them, And lightning flashes in
abundance, and routed them. 15 Then the
channels of water appeared, And the foundations of the world were laid bare At
Your rebuke, O LORD, At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils. 16 He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me
out of many waters. 17 He delivered me
from my strong enemy, And from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for
me. 18 They confronted me in the day of
my calamity, But the LORD was my stay.”
David
begins this psalm with love in verse one, then faith in verse two, and hope in
verse three. Paul wrote in 1Cor. 13,
which is the “love chapter” these words, “But now faith, hope, love, abide
these three; but the greatest of these is love.” The love that is described in this Hebrew
word that is translated love in verse one means to love deeply, to have
compassion. Dr. Wiersbe points out that
this word is related to the Hebrew word for “womb” (Jer. 21:7) and this word
describes the kind of love a mother has for her baby (Isa. 49:15), a father has
for his children (Psalm 103:13) and the Lord has for His chosen people Israel
(Psalm 102:13; Hos. 1:7; Deut. 13:17).
It is a deep and fervent love, the kind of love all of us should have
for the Lord (Ps. 31:23): “O love the
LORD, all you His godly ones! The LORD preserves the faithful And fully
recompenses the proud doer.”
As we look
at the remaining verses in this section we see seven metaphors and all of them
are from a man who loved the great outdoors, and that is where David had lived
most of his life up to that point. He
was a shepherd, and he was a soldier and then he ran from Saul and lived in
caves, so it is understandable that David would use these kind of
metaphors. “Rock” is used for the Lord
on many occasions in the Scriptures and is seen in verses 2 and 31. This word speaks of the strength of the Lord
and stability, and also a place of refuge.
Next we see “fortress” and this pictures God as a stronghold much like
the city of Jerusalem. “Shield” speaks
of the protection of God and David was Israel’s shield, but the Lord was
David’s shield. “Horn” refers to
strength and it also has Messianic connotations (Luke 1:69). When we look at all of these words that
describe God we come to the conclusion that God is worthy of our prayers.
In verses
4-6 we see David’s distress and this comes after writing of his devotion to the
Lord. We see a picture of a man who was
trapped, hemmed in on all sides, and David uses other words to describe how he
was in great trouble. Perhaps we can say
that the Lord had David right where he wanted him, as it was at this point that
David cried out for help from the Lord.
These kind of situations that we can be in will cause us to go one way
or the other way, we can do as David did and call on the Lord or we can do like
those that Jesus spoke about in the parable of the seeds and in that parable we
see only one kind of seed that produced fruit and the rest produced nothing,
for those described as that kind of seed did not call upon the Lord when
trouble came.
David is
describing how God, who had been longsuffering to Saul, now takes action
against him and in the end Saul will be killed and David will be king. Saul was the king that the people wanted
while David was the king that God wanted Israel to have. David was in exile for ten years, but now he
was the king over Israel as God had promised him when he was just a youth.
God Rewards When We Obey (vv. 19-27): “19
He brought me forth also into a broad place; He rescued me, because He
delighted in me. 20 The LORD has
rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my
hands He has recompensed me. 21 For I
have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all His ordinances were before
me, And I did not put away His statutes from me. 23 I was also blameless with Him, And I kept
myself from my iniquity. 24 Therefore
the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the
cleanness of my hands in His eyes. 25
With the kind You show Yourself kind; With the blameless You show
Yourself blameless; 26 With the pure You
show Yourself pure, And with the crooked You show Yourself astute. 27 For You save an afflicted people, But haughty
eyes You abase.” (Humiliate)
Dr. Wiersbe writes that “God
enlarged David’s trials and used them to enlarge David!” God called David a man after God’s own heart
and God said that when David was a young man.
This does not mean that David was perfect, as we discussed that in the
last SD, but we saw that David was blameless and we see that again in this
psalm. When you look at the life of Saul
and the sins that he committed and compare them with the sins that David
committed we see that David’s sins were in fact worse sins than Saul’s. David
knew much more about the Lord than Saul did and I have said earlier that Saul
was man’s choice and so he acted like it when he sinned, while David was God’s
man and David acted like that when he sinned, for David knew God much better
than Saul did and that was the difference.
We see in
verse nineteen that the Lord had set David on a broad place, where he had been
in a tight place full of trouble before.
David then speaks of his righteousness and how he had kept the Law of
God even in difficult situations.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes “The way we relate to the Lord determines how the Lord relates to us
(vv. 25-27). David was merciful to Saul,
and God was merciful to David (Matt. 5:9).
David was loyal (blameless), and God was faithful to him and kept His
promises to bless him David wasn’t sinless, but he was blameless in his
motives. The ‘pure in heart’ (Matt. 5:8)
and those hearts are wholly dedicated to God.”
As mentioned above Saul was just the opposite, for he was man’s choice
to be king.
God Equips When We Submit to Him (vv.
28-45): “28 For You light my lamp; The LORD my God
illumines my darkness. 29 For by You I
can run upon a troop; And by my God I can leap over a wall. 30 As for God, His way is blameless; The word of
the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. 31 For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a
rock, except our God, 32 The God who
girds me with strength And makes my way blameless? 33 He makes my feet like hinds’ feet, And sets
me upon my high places. 34 He trains my
hands for battle, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. 35 You have also given me the shield of Your
salvation, And Your right hand upholds me; And Your gentleness makes me great.
36 You enlarge my steps under me, And my
feet have not slipped. 37 I pursued my
enemies and overtook them, And I did not turn back until they were consumed.
38 I shattered them, so that they were
not able to rise; They fell under my feet. 39
For You have girded me with strength for battle; You have subdued under
me those who rose up against me. 40 You have
also made my enemies turn their backs to me, And I destroyed those who hated
me. 41 They cried for help, but there
was none to save, Even to the LORD, but He did not answer them. 42 Then I beat them fine as the dust before the
wind; I emptied them out as the mire of the streets. 43 You have delivered me from the contentions of
the people; You have placed me as head of the nations; A people whom I have not
known serve me. 44 As soon as they hear,
they obey me; Foreigners submit to me. 45
Foreigners fade away, And come trembling out of their fortresses.
What was God doing in those
years that David was in exile, running from Saul? God was disciplining His people for they were
going ahead of God in asking for a king.
God spoke about Israel having a king in the Law and gave laws on how a
king was to rule. You can look at the
things that Solomon did when he was king and if he would have done the opposite
of what he did then he would have been keeping the laws God set up for his
kings.
As
mentioned above God was also being longsuffering in the life of Saul, but Saul
did not take advantage of God’s longsuffering for him as on the day before his
death Saul actually contacted a witch to find out what was going to happen to
him. That is how far he sunk.
God was
also preparing David to be king and this took ten years to prepare him, and yet
it took thirteen years to prepare Joseph, and forty years to prepare Moses and
Joshua for the rolls that God had planned for them.
We see the
image of a lamp in verse 28 and this speaks of the grace that God gave to David
to keep him alive while in exile all of those years. It also speaks of David’s family for through
his family the Lord Jesus Christ would come through who is the Light as He
spoke of in John’s Gospel.
We also see
that God protected him and enabled him to fight the battles of the Lord by
giving him strength and the ability to be a great warrior for the Lord’s
battles. David did not fight other
nations just to gain land for Israel, but he fought against those nations that
fought against Israel and the result was gaining territory for Israel. David speaks about his ability to do this in
this section (verses 29, 32-34, 37-45).
In verse thirty-two we see David describing his feet to be like hinds’
feet. There is a book entitled “Hinds’
feet in High Places.” I remember the
title because the author spoke of the animals (mostly sheep that live in the
mountains) having the ability to put their back feet in the exact same places
as their front feet have stepped. This
gives these animals the ability to climb in very difficult places in
safety. David is saying that God had
given him the ability, through His grace) to move in difficult places.
David was
not only a warrior, but he also learned to be gentle, and this surely is a
characteristic of God that He had given to David, and that is another reason
that David was a man after God’s own heart.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “God condescended to look down and call David (1Sam. 16),
bend down and mold David (v-35), and reach down and save David (v-16); and then
He lifted him up to the throne (vv.39-45).
This reminds us of what Jesus, the Son of David, did when He ‘stepped
down’ to come to earth as a servant and die for our sins (Phil. 2:1-11; see
John 8:1-11 and 13:1-11). Because David
was submitted to the Lord, God could trust Him with the authority and glory of
the throne. Only those who are under
authority should exercise authority.”
God is Glorified When We Worship Him (vv.
46-50): “46 The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock; And
exalted be the God of my salvation, 47
The God who executes vengeance for me, And subdues peoples under me. 48 He delivers me from my enemies; Surely You
lift me above those who rise up against me; You rescue me from the violent man.
49 Therefore I will give thanks to You
among the nations, O LORD, And I will sing praises to Your name. 50 He gives great deliverance to His king, And
shows lovingkindness to His anointed, To David and his descendants forever.”
46 The LORD liveth; and blessed be
my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted. (AV)
This section is similar to what
John the Baptist said in John 3:30 “He must increase, but I must
decrease.” David is praising the Lord
for the good things that He has done through David and how God has lifted David
up to the throne of Israel, but David knows it was all of the Lord and
therefore David breaks out in praise to the Lord. We see that Paul quoted verse 49 in Romans 15:9
and Paul use it there to apply it to the Jews praising God among the Gentiles
and then in verses 10-11 Paul writes that the Jews and the Gentiles will
rejoice together which was a result of Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles. Then we see in verse twelve these words: “Again Isaiah says, "THERE SHALL COME
THE ROOT OF JESSE, AND HE WHO ARISES TO RULE OVER THE GENTILES, IN HIM SHALL
THE GENTILES HOPE.’”
David ends this psalm by exalting
the Lord for His covenant to him and to his descendents (v-50). David seems to always end his psalms with praise
to the Lord no matter what circumstance in his life he is writing about.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: David
praised the Lord for making him king over Israel even though he had to go
through ten years of difficulties. This
encourages me to continue to praise the Lord in all circumstances, knowing that
He is in control of my life and even when things get tough God still has a plan
and is working out that plan for my life to bring glory to Him.
My Steps of Faith for
Today:
1. Continue
to trust the Lord each and every day of my life to guide me on the path He
wants me on. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
2. Continue
to learn contentment in the Lord.
3. Romans
12:1-2.
4. Psalm
139:23-24.
5. Ephesians
6:10-18.
1/5/2012 11:12:56 AM
Answer to yesterday's Bible question: "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:16-17)
Today's Bible question: "How long was the ship ride through the storm that Paul was on when he was heading for Rome.
Answer in our next SD.
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