Psalm 18 - God Delights In You

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. And it's been kind of an odd day today. I woke up to some news of the Francis Scott Key Bridge having collapsed after a vessel had hit it.

And so many, many questions, many concerns and prayers and thoughts for everyone that was on the bridge at the time.

At this point, when I'm recording it, I believe six or seven vehicles that were on there, as well as a construction crew, and a couple of people had been rescued out of the water at this point and not necessarily any casualties mentioned yet at the

time of my recording. I'm certain that there will be some difference in that as time goes on. But just wanted to mention at the onset of this recording to be in prayer for people. Prayer is not the least we can do.

It is an incredible thing. It's asking God, who is sovereign and in control, to work in ways that we can't. Personally, I don't have the connections.

I don't know people who were either working on the bridge or had family members that were affected by this. I don't personally have that. And so all I can do is pray.

And I invite you, in your life, there will be times where disaster strikes, where things do not go well. And what we can do in those moments is turn to God.

And we can also attempt to, as much as we can, if God has provided us with maybe financial means to do so, we might be able to help out with some group or something that is working on disaster relief. I'm very thankful for our state convention.

And they've got BCMD Ready is the team that works with disaster relief and heard of some of their mobilization even kind of right away with this. Also thankful for our North American Mission Board with the Send Network.

And they have Send Relief that does some amazing work as well. And thankful for organizations, especially Christian organizations that have a desire to both spread the Gospel and to provide physical, tangible help as well.

And kind of being Jesus' hands and feet there in areas where it's needed. And so we encourage you be in prayer. And maybe if God lays it on your heart to be able to give something to a relief effort, do so.

Have that heart of generosity towards others. But I wanted to start off with that, just having kind of brought to our attention the need to pray for others, that others are going through difficulties.

Maybe you, as you're listening to this, you're going through difficulties. The same God that we pray to for the cause of other people, He also cares about you.

And so as we look today at Psalm 18, this is a great song that deals with David kind of in a big praise way, thanking the Lord for everything that he's done for him.

The inscription of Psalm 18 says this, For the director of music, of David, the servant of Yahweh, he sang to Yahweh the words of this song, when he delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

So this is a portion of scripture that is also reproduced in 2 Samuel 22.

And so you can read kind of those that as a parallel passage, if you want to many of the same words, some slight adjustments here and there in the text, some of which are even highlighted in my Bible that say, okay, here's where there's this slight

difference. And 2 Samuel has this section of the song and the Psalm 18. This has a different portion of the song right here. So we're going to read through.

It's 50 verses. So I'm going to read all the way through and then mention some things that kind of stood out as we go along. David said, I love you, Yahweh, my strength.

Yahweh is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer. My God is my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Going to stop here real quick.

A horn of salvation is like the great might. You are the strong showing of salvation. He says, I called to Yahweh, who is worthy of praise, and I have been saved from my enemies.

The cords of death entangled me. The torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me.

The snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called to Yahweh. I cried to my God for help.

From his temple, he heard my voice. My cry came before him. Into his ears, the earth trembled and quaked, and the foundation of the mountains shook.

They trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils. Consuming fire blazed out of it.

Consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down. Dark clouds were under his feet.

He mounted the cherubim and flew. He soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, the dark rain clouds of the sky.

Out of the brightness of his presence, clouds advanced with hailstones and bolts of lightning. Yahweh thundered from heaven. The voice of the Most High resounded.

He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy. With great bolts of lightning, he routed them. The valleys of the sea were exposed, and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, Yahweh, at the blast of breath from your nostrils.

So I want to take just a moment. I know Sadu is going to read through the whole thing, but we'll go with it. So here he is using some of the stories that people would say about Baal, and he's repurposing them for this is what God is like.

Yeah, you guys can say that about Baal, but Baal's not real. Baal's never actually done any of these things. Baal's never helped anyone.

Here he says, the one that really does come riding on the clouds, the one who really does command the lightning and the hailstones, the one who really does have here the cherubim. This is the angels. They're often spoken about.

You can think of some of the animal hybrid things that you read about in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 6, and then in the Book of Revelation as well.

Some of those animal amalgamations, different than the ones that are in Daniel 7, because those are all like bad animals. Those are all like chaos creatures put together. These ones, it's mainly illustrative of what kind of nature that they have.

It's like they are strong like this. They are mobile and moving like this thing. These are spiritual creatures, not physical creatures.

So they don't have a body like physical things do. So no time to go over all of that. But here David's saying, I was going down.

Jonah quotes from Psalm 18 when he is in the belly of the whale.

He's saying, oh yeah, I know exactly what it's like for the cords of death to entangle me, the torrents of destruction to overwhelm me, the cords of the grave coiled around me, the snares of death confronted me.

Jonah goes, yeah, I know exactly what that's like. I'm literally in the middle of a fish. And then Jonah quotes this section too.

I called the God, God heard me out of his temple, and he came down to rescue me. And man, recording this during the week of Easter, how cool is it to think this is Jesus. He came down, he parted the heavens and came down.

He mounted the cherubim and flew. He comes down with lightning and hailstones. He thunders from heaven, he shoots and scatters the enemy.

He is so powerful. And Jesus came down for us.

He came down, yes, as a baby, but with all the power of God himself and the work that he did while he was on earth, the work that he did on the cross, the work he did while he was in the grave, and the work that he did in his resurrection.

He is our incredible God. I love verse number three. I memorized this in the authorized version as a kid.

I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my enemies. Let's continue reading in verse number 16. He reached down from on high and took hold of me.

He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of disaster, but Yahweh was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me because He delighted in me. God does not hate you.

He loves you. Whether you are His child, He loves you with an everlasting love that will never be lessened or go away, because He loves you because He made you. He loves you because you are His.

He loves you because Christ died for you. If you do not know Christ yet, He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die in your place. He created this world for you.

He has given you everything you have in your life. Every good thing that you have ever experienced is because He cares for you, and He gave you those opportunities, those relationships, those possessions. He loves you.

He delights in you. Do you delight in Him? Verse number 20.

Yahweh has dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands He has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord. I am not guilty of turning from my God.

All His laws are before me. I have not turned away from His decrees. I have been blameless before Him and have kept myself from sin.

The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight. Here, I think of the forgiveness that God offers. This is written after from everything that I can tell.

It might be out of chronological order in 2 Samuel 22.

At least as it's written there, this would be written after everything happened in David's life with Bathsheba, with Absalom, with the counting of the census, number of wrong things that David did.

Here, I think there's a great truth for us to remember. We might go, oh, I remember when I failed in that way. I remember when I did this thing.

I remember when I did that. But that's not how God views it. It's we all fail because we are sinners and we have not been completely renewed yet.

We are being renewed, but we are not what we will be. We fall, we fail, we sin, but God doesn't write us off with that. Instead, as we can see here in the life of David, it's what will we do when we're confronted with our sin?

Think back to Adam and Eve at the very beginning. When they were confronted with their sin, they passed the buck. They said, no, it's so-and-so's fault.

I'm not wrong. And we are all capable and often do that ourselves. David, when he was confronted with his wrong, he always turned back to the Lord.

When Nathan tells him, you are the man, the sinful one in the story, David then goes, man, I've sinned before God. We can read Psalm 51 in, I believe it's Book 2 of Psalms. David goes, I have sinned against God when he does the census.

And God goes, OK, here are your options for punishment. David doesn't go, oh no, I don't deserve this. Or oh yeah, give me the easiest one.

He goes, God, like, you know what's right, you pick. David was one that though he failed, and he failed in big ways, his response to his failures was a response of God, I was wrong, and God, I need you because I am butchering it.

And I think we can take that to heart that even if we feel like, okay, well, I can't say that I am blameless before him, and I have kept myself from sin because of God's forgiveness, even when we mess up, if we don't just give ourselves wholesale to

sin and instead turn back to God and go, okay, Lord, I need you. Man, he is there for us. What a comfort that is. Verse number 25, he's sending on, to the faithful, you show yourself faithful.

To the blameless, you show yourself blameless. To the pure, you show yourself pure. But to the devious, you show yourself shrewd.

To the people that are conniving, God can do some conniving too, and his conniving is a lot better than ours. He says, You save the humble, but bring low those whose eyes are haughty, proud. You, Yahweh, keep my lamp burning.

My God turns my darkness into light. With your help, I can advance against a troop. I can run through a barricade.

With my God, I can scale a wall. As for God, his way is perfect. Yahweh's word is flawless.

He shields all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides Yahweh? And who is the Rock except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He causes me to stand on the heights.

He trains my hands for battle. My arms can bend a bow of bronze. You make your saving help my shield.

And your right hand sustains me. Your help has made me great. Here David realizes it's not because I'm a great military leader or because I'm a really charismatic leader that now Saul and all the rest of my enemies are gone.

He says, God, it's because of you. You have made a way for me. He says, you provide a broad path for my feet so that my ankles do not give away.

Verse 37, I pursued my enemies and overtook them. I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they could not rise.

They fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for battle. You humbled my adversaries before me.

You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes. They cried for help, but there was no one to save them to the Lord, but he did not answer. I beat them as fine as windblown dust.

I trampled them like mud in the streets. You have delivered me from the attacks of the people. You have made me the head of nations.

People I did not know now serve me. Foreigners cower before me. As soon as they hear of me, they obey me.

They all lose heart. They come trembling from their strongholds.

I want to mention here, because the Old Testament is written to a specific people, it's written from a specific people, in a very specific circumstance, we can read some of those verses and go, hmm, that doesn't really seem like what in the world is

going on here. There's numbers of levels of God's justice, of God's protection, of his people, and of the messianic line of Christ. Tons of things that go into that.

I'm certain as we continue forward on Tabernacle Talk, there'll probably be a day where I'm able to take some time to dedicate to. All right. Why here is he saying this is a good thing?

At the very least, I think for us here in America, we would think of times where we would say, yes, this battle was a good battle, a battle against the Nazis, that someone would say, wow, God, thank you that we were able to overpower this German

troop, and that even though they attempted to flee and try and regroup to fight another day, that you gave us victory. And in that context, we'd go, well, yeah, because there was deep evil that was affecting thousands, millions of people, and that

evil had to be taken care of. Here is a similar thing taking place. That's a reductionist approach.

That's not the fullest extent that I could say on that subject, but because of where we're at with time, I'll just say I will encounter that particular thought another time. Verse number 46.

Yahweh lives, praise be to my rock, exalted be God, my Savior. He is the God who avenges me, who subdues nations under me, who saves me from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes from a violent man, you rescued me.

Therefore, I will praise you, Yahweh, among the nations. I will sing the praises of your name. He gives his king great victories.

He shows unfailing love to his anointed, to David and to his descendants forever. I just want to mention this one kind of last thing as we close today. Verse number 50.

He gives his king great victories. He shows unfailing love to his anointed. So anointed here would be the Hebrew word Mashiach, or we might know it, Messiah.

So I want us to think of that verse in light of Jesus. He gives his king great victories. Victory over sin, over death, over the grave, over Satan himself.

He shows unfailing love. This is, I don't have a Hebrew thing or original language thing right in front of me. But I believe this unfailing love is the same Chesed, that covenant love, that unfailing love that we mentioned yesterday.

He shows unfailing love to his Messiah, to David and to his descendants forever, which includes Christ, who was the son of David from the line of David.

Today, do you realize that God loves you, that he wants to make a way for you, that he forgives your sins and your wrongdoings. He cares about justice. He cares about what's going wrong in your world and in your life.

And he sees it and he will give the victory because in Christ, he has all victory.

He's the one who came down in power and who will one day come again a little bit more literally, like we see here with power, with thunder and lightning, riding down with the angels in the chair of him.

What a wonderful day, a day that we will come back with him. And I'm just super pumped up about this week. And with Easter, I would like to encourage you today, pray to God.

He wants to hear from you. He delights in you. He loves you.

He has unfailing love for you if you are in Christ. And if you don't know Christ, he loves you and he wants you to become his child. Today, I hope that would be an encouragement to you.

Thanks for tuning in to Tabernacle Talk.