Psalm 18, Psalm 18 tonight. Trust you had a good prayer time. We will try to finish up this psalm this evening. We've spent a couple of weeks already looking at this psalm. And it is a rich psalm. And there's so much, it really could be a separate sermon series all by itself. But 50 verses, and the imagery, the terminology, and the promises, all the principles that are in this psalm, it's a very, very rich and full psalm that we can turn to along with 149 other friends. As I like how that one preacher put it, when he's struggling, when he's discouraged, when he's down, he knows he has 150 friends. and he was referring to the Psalms, and I've always, that's stuck with me ever since I heard him say that, and Psalm 18 is one of those Psalms that we can go to when life is, we can go to any time, but particularly when life is difficult, when there are challenges and pressures, and we can see that David cries out, The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer." The outline is in the prayer list and I'm going to hopefully be able to finish this this evening. And we have already looked at the first really 19, 15 to 19 verses. And so we started at the beginning of the psalm David's exclamation of, "'I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.'" We see his personal love for the Lord. He uses the word Yahweh, Jehovah, all capital letters for the word Lord. We see his love for God. And we see the titles that he gives to the Lord, Rock, Fortress, Deliverer, My God, My Strength, In Whom I Will Trust, My Buckler, and the Horn of My Salvation, and My High Tower. We spent some time last week and the week before looking at the fact that We are to be a praying people. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised. He is worthy of our praise. He desires for us to pray to him. David, of course, faced many enemies from even Saul, who was the king, who desired to take David's life and prevent him from being The next king, David, of course, had to hide in caves and behind rocks. And then, of course, there were the many other enemies, from the Philistines to the various other enemies. And I believe that David was most likely writing this psalm, as it is also in 2 Samuel 22. I believe David was writing this near the end of his life. And so here he is looking back on many years of God's faithfulness and deliverance. He refers to the sorrows of death in verse 4, they're like a flood and the ungodly men that have come after him that bring fear to his life. We talked about the sorrows of hell, hell being the word there, sheol in the Hebrew, which either can refer to the eternal states or it can just simply refer to death, the grave. It appears, of course, David is not going to hell. He's not losing his salvation. He's a Born again, believer, he's a saved man. So he's not saying that he's going to lose his salvation, he's gonna go to hell. He's just simply referring to death, the grave. And humanly speaking, it is overwhelming, the sorrows of death, the fears, the fact that he is literally on the precipice of death, and the snares of death, even in the imagery there in verse five. And then in his distress, he called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God and we see the Lord answers out of his temple. And my cry came before him even into his ears. Again, we see the fact that God wants us to pray. God wants us to come to him. We even read in the book of Revelation about the incense, the smoke that comes up from the altar and how that represents the prayers of the saints. God desires for us to come to him. He wants us to cry out to him. And then we see the imagery, verses 7 all the way down through verse 15, from an earthquake to what appears to be a mighty thunderstorm. All the imagery is of God coming to defend His people. So as we get into the outline again, we are looking now at God as defender. David in his desperation, verses four and five, and then really the imagery all the way down through verse 15 is God coming to defend his people, to defend David. And we see Jesus Christ as advocate. Satan is constantly accusing. The world is constantly tempting, the flesh, the devil. There is distress, there are enemies, there are attacks upon our faith, there are pressures from within and from without, but we see God coming to the defense of David and he cries out to the Lord. God hears out of his temple. God cares about our needs, and the earth shook, there's smoke, even that is a reference probably to the holiness of God, fire out of his mouth, judgment, bow to heavens also, this is like a great storm. Verse 10, we talked about last week, he wrote upon a cherub, the idea of the holiness of God, cherub, the imagery there of a cherubim accompanying God in his life. his deliverance and his defense of his people. And God does use angels. And there are often references to angels in the scriptures, even angels unawares as Abraham would host what was angels and who would eventually also even go into Sodom and Gomorrah and talked a lot and encourage him to leave or else he would die with the judgment of God that was gonna come upon those cities. So we see the cherub, cherubim, often in conjunction with God's holiness. So we see the holiness of God in his judgment, in his wrath, in defense of his people, in judgment of God's enemies. Verse 12, with the brightness that was before him, his thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the highest gave his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Again, all these images of the judgment of God and His holiness and His wrath. Yea, He sent out His arrows and scattered them, and He shot out lightnings and disconfited them. It's almost like a big thunderstorm, isn't it? We've experienced those probably all of us have to some degree. And I remember someone saying years ago, I heard someone say that there's nothing thunderstorm to let mankind know who's in charge, right? And it's in a sense, it's God thundering saying, I am in control, I am in charge here, man can shake his but he's like an ant sitting at the end of a runway shaking his fist, a little ant shaking his fist at a 757 flying over. It's insignificant, it's nothing. But that's what man does, man thinks he's so great and he's so powerful and he can take on God and he can defeat all of God's people and he can refute God's word, no. There might be some minor skirmishes where it appears, it seems, from our human perspective, that the world wins, but ultimately, no. God always wins. God's going to accomplish his purpose. He's gonna defend his people, his will. fulfilled." And David is crying out at the end of his life, he has seen God defend. He has seen God work. He has seen God deliver. He has seen God's protection multiple times. And he uses language of an earthquake, of a thunderstorm. Channels of water were seen, verse 15, the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of of the breath of thy nostrils." There's even a creative power that is referenced here by David. Wonderful imagery that shows the greatness of our God. He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters, verse 16. So we see deliverance all the way down through verse 19. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me, for they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because he delighted in me. We see God's deliverance in miraculous, supernatural form. And we think about all of the threats to our safety. Think about just driving up and down the road. And with all the substances that people are on nowadays, we were coming down Sagamore, going north actually on Sagamore. The other day, actually, we were coming home from church last Wednesday night, I think it was, the first time we noticed that there was a whole side of the Southwire building on Sagamore, north of Union Street, a whole section of the Southwire building that had been taken out because somebody had literally jumped the curb, knocked over the signs, went through the chain link fence and crashed into the Southwire building and knocked a whole section of the siding off. I'm thinking, how fast were they going? What were they on? What were they doing? But there's all kinds of threats to our safety. Some people work in very dangerous environments. And of course, David had experienced it simply because he was God's chosen man to be king, simply because David was a man after God's own heart, who loved God. David even went out and faced the Philistine giant, Goliath, when nobody else was willing to go. David had seen supernatural deliverance. We have much to be thankful for. just driving to and from our jobs and wherever we go. I think about all the miles that we've put on our vehicle going down to Georgia and back. And I think of flights overseas on mission trips that I've taken. Some of you have traveled internationally. Think about all the things that could go wrong. Think about the little two-lane roads out in the country and some vehicles going the other direction 75 miles an hour, right? I mean, we think about all those things and we just take them for granted because we are in good vehicles with lots of safety features and we're thankful for that. We praise God for that, but just imagine one wrong turn, somebody looking at their phone, looking up in the rear view mirror and losing control, whatever the case may be, and they come across the center line. I'm not trying to be morbid, I'm just trying to say all these ways in which God watches out, that God protects us, that God delivers us. And David's just going on and on in his exaltation of the Lord. And he even talks about God putting him, the Lord putting him in a broad place. I believe it's there in, Verse 19, a large place. If you've ever been in a predicament where you were in a tight squeeze, I think of Mammoth Cave and I think of, what was it, Fat Man's Misery? Tall Man's Trouble and Fat Man's Misery. And there's a section, there's one tour of Mammoth Cave where literally you are in this tiny, this very narrow section trying to get in. And they call it Fat Man's Misery. And it's nice when you get into those tight squeezes to be able to get into a place that's large, that's open, that's, you don't have to squeeze. And that's referring to those pressures. And don't we feel pressure in our life many times? Job pressure, financial pressure, kid pressure, on and on it goes, all those pressures. How do we handle those? What do we do? David called out to the Lord. He found the Lord drawing him out of waters, putting him in a large place, helping him with the pressures of life. The world isn't doing real well coping with the pressures of life. The anger, the stress, all the drugs and everything else that people are turning to, it's scary. You just talked about Subaru and what's going on there and the sobering reminder as someone passed away and there's people there thinking about eternity and we have people in places like that and everywhere else that you work where there's people who are in great need. And you are there as salt and lights, and you have the testimony of God delivering you, taking you out of many waters, and putting you in a broad place, in a large place. So that takes us then to the last part of this psalm, all the way down through verse 50. I'm gonna go ahead and put all of the outline up. And we see integrity. This is the section that really, verses 20, and we could include all the way through verse 50. Commentators will disagree a little bit. But really, 20 through 50 is messianic. It's David recounting, I believe, his life. But he's also speaking as a type of Christ in a messianic, as a royal psalm. He's even making a messianic reference here. We don't have time to read all 30 of these verses, 20 through 50, but where some Bible scholars disagree is how could David be referring to his integrity, his blamelessness when he had in his life. But verse 20, David writing near the end of his life, I don't believe he's saying that he hasn't sinned. Now in a Messianic sense, yes, there is a actual sinlessness as the Holy Son of God, a messianic reference would be obviously referring to the sinless Christ. But David, as some would say, he's writing clothed in the righteousness of Christ, but also we have to think of it in these terms. David did not wickedly depart from God. He didn't deconstruct his faith. He didn't leave The faith, he did not leave God. We've seen people do that. All of us probably know someone who used to at least at some point claim to be some sort of follower of Jesus or Christian who's sadly nowhere near church or Christ. Not living for the Lord, not living according to God's word. I have classmates who went to the same Christian school who are out in orbit somewhere, who denied the faith. And it's sad. I don't know what went on in there. They sat in the same, many times, same classroom, same Bible classes, same Christian school. Many of them went to the same church I did. I know they heard the gospel. And something in their heart and mind caused them to, I mean, ultimately it's sin, it's pride, it's rebellion against God, but they're wayward. And David didn't do that. David remained faithful to the Lord even though there was sin. Psalm 32, Psalm 51, David's confessing his sin. He's talking about the agony. That's a man under conviction. And when Nathan said, thou art the man, David poured out his heart against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sights. Purge me with hyssop, he writes in Psalm 51. Cleanse me, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. David did not wickedly depart from God. So he's writing as a man who, even though he had sin in his life, he remained faithful to the Lord. With the merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful, verse 25. With an upright man, thou wilt show thyself upright. Who is it that often complains the most about God, saying that he's unfair and unjust? It's the people who are in rebellion, who are merciless themselves. who are brutes. I hear from some of these politicians and superstars and celebrities and they sing and they write blasphemous words in their interviews and in their podcasts. I don't listen to all that garbage. You know what I'm saying though. You hear things, headlines and tidbits and some of the music and stuff that they produce that makes it on the headlines and top 20 charts and whatever. Many of them are downright blasphemous toward God. Just horrible in what they say about Christianity, about truth, about morality, about ethics. And they are then the ones who are unethical, and immoral, and merciless, and crude, and rude, and brutish, and yet they're trying to call God those blasphemous, say those blasphemous things about God, when they themselves are living in rebellion, and David is simply saying, the person who is merciless, because they don't recognize the mercy and the grace of God that is offered to them in their life, they ultimately live as a merciless person, having never known God's mercy, having never been upright themselves, which can only happen by the grace of God. They reject the grace and the mercy of God, so they live a life that is merciless. I'm not saying that unsaved people can't be moral or moralistic. That's not my point. He's not saying that there aren't moralistic or moral unsaved people, If they're not truly trusting Christ for forgiveness of their sin, for salvation, if their faith and trust is not in Christ, in Christ alone, for salvation, then they're outside the mercy of God. That's a sobering thought. There are moral, ethical, unsaved people who are depending upon their good works, thinking they are good enough, But they're really not truly an upright person. They're not truly a person who's received mercy, because they're trying to do it on their own. They've never cried out to the Lord for salvation and saving faith. We could go down to verse 27, for that will save the afflicted people, but will bring down high looks. What's he referencing? He's referencing the humble. Humble, afflicted, poor, weak, needy, all of those terms are referring to a person who sees their need to depend upon the Lord. It's the poor in spirit of Matthew 5. It's the mourning over sin of Matthew 5, the Beatitudes. Oftentimes in the Psalms, in Proverbs, poor is referencing, sometimes not really even referencing financial poverty. Many times the word poor in the poetic literature of Hebrew, of the poetic books, many times the word poor, and really throughout the Bible, many times it's a reference to a dependent spirit, a recognition of one's impoverishness spiritually. We often wanna put financial terms on it, definitions on it, right? We often wanna think of poor as, oh, that's a, and many times, the social justice warriors, they get caught up and they use scripture out of context and they make everything about finances, financial and finances. Many times, poor, yes, there could be a financial need, but really, who's rich? Think about who's rich. When we're rich, rich just simply means I have more than I need. I'm rich. Because I have a lot more than I really need. And I need to be grateful. And we have a Thanksgiving holiday that gets bulldozed by Christmas, not that Christmas doesn't have its place. I'm not saying it doesn't have its place, but Thanksgiving gets bulldozed over by Halloween and right into the materialism, unfortunately, too many times of Christmas. Obviously, we see Christmas as believers for what it truly is, but even we have to be careful lest we get caught up in the materialism and the greed. But a rich person is really any person who has more than what they need. When we think of poor, we should think of humility. It's the one who truly sees themselves. as a needy person in need of God's help. Verse 28, that will light my candle. The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. We see all of this terminology. We see God's direction, the principles, the privileges, all the way down through verse 28. And then verses 29 through 45, there's challenges of leadership. Again, there's a messianic references here, but we see David, recognizing it was God who enabled him to run through a troop, to fight military battles, leap over a wall, and then verse 30, as for God, his way is what? Perfect. That word perfect there, it means complete, but it also has the idea of completely holy, completely right. God is completely, right, and always completely perfect in all of his accomplishments. We can go out and make a good effort. We'll miss a shot. We'll miss a layup. I've been there. Wide open layup, two feet from the basket. Bang. Embarrassing. We strike out. We whatever. What should be the easiest, and we've seen bonehead plays by, sometimes you turn on those replays on TV, on the YouTube channel, and the funniest fails in sports, and you see people running the wrong way 50 yards on a football game to score a touchdown for the other team, which I guess it turns into a safety or whatever anyway. But we do really dumb things. I've left my keys in the doorknob all night long, left the garage door open the entire night, You know, all these things that we do that remind us should humble us. We don't think, we think we're smarter. No, God is able to accomplish, he's perfect and holy, fulfills, he never makes mistakes. He never forgets about his people. He never forgets what he was doing, goes upstairs and realizes, what am I up here for? No, God never does that. Completely, fully accomplishing his will And he desires to use us. Unworthy. But we need to see ourselves afflicted and humble ourselves before him. And then David in the final 20 or so verses there, who is God, save the Lord. Actually I skipped over in verse 30, the word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to those that trust him. The word of the Lord is tried. It is tested and always found perfect. We test the Lord. We test truth. Sometimes, bullheadedly with our sin, but whether we disobey or we obey, we ultimately prove that God's word is 100% accurate, 100% true. But I would much rather prove God's word to be 100% accurate and true by being obedient than by being disobedient, right? God's going to accomplish His will. Who is God? Save the Lord. And then we see even the Messianic references all the way down through verse 45 and then we close with his final praises to the Lord. Verse 46, the Lord liveth and blessed be my rock and let the God of my salvation be exalted. You ever heard that song? God is, the Lord liveth and blessed be the rock, my rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted. I'm not gonna try to sing it, but I'm not sure if it's in our hymn book or not. But there's a song that's been written from that verse. Verse 47, excuse me, it is God that avenges me and subdueth the people under me, delivereth me from mine enemies. Yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me. Thou hast delivered me from the violent man. Therefore, will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name. Great deliverance giveth he to his king, and showeth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed forevermore. Think David realized at the end of his life that it was God who had led him all the way? He sang praises to the Lord in his final hours, in his final days, and may we do the same. We don't know how long God will have us here on this earth. We're looking for the rapture, right? We want that to be our exit out of here. But whatever the Lord desires, whether he tarry and we go by death or whether we go by rapture, we can praise the Lord, and we should each and every day sing his praises and be thankful for his deliverance, that he is our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for our time together this evening. Thank you, Lord, for these truths, these promises in your word. Lord, we need to claim these as humble, dependent people. Lord, when the pressures of life come, we thank you that you can bring us into a large place, a broad place, Lord, even though the pressures may continue, we know that Lord, you have us as our rock and fortress and deliver. our high tower. Thank you, Lord, for this great psalm. Thank you for the testimony of David, and thank you for how you gave him these words by the inspiration of God that are such a help and encouragement to us. Even these hundreds of years later, from the time that David penned these, they are so true in our lives today. May we claim them, live by them, and be faithful to you and to your word. Thank you again for our time together. Pray for safety as we travel home. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Thank you for being here. Trust that you have a great rest of the week and look forward to seeing you on Sunday.