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Text: Psalm 18 & 2 Samuel 22
This psalm is the same song in 2 Samuel 22. David is in his sixties at this point. The preface poses a potential problem with the timeline. Why? It mentions Saul, but Saul has long been dead by this point. Yet, his nagging influences of adversarial grandchildren are still wreaking havoc on the nation.
Saul’s terrorism against the Gibeonites years before now brought the judgment of God on the land in the form of a three-year famine. Saul unilaterally killed Gibeonites because he thought God would be happy, but there was no reason to do it. The Gibeonites were certain Amorites who remained in the land of Israel without a problem. They were not a problem. It’s in 2 Samuel 21 where those influences are finally put to rest by seven of Saul’s sons or grandsons extradited to the Gibeonites to be put to death.
Who the LORD has been to David (vss 1-6)
- The LORD is David’s rock, refuge, strength, and help. From early on in life to now later in life, the David has sought the LORD for counsel, direction, protection, and hope.
- The LORD is not a literal piece of granite. But spiritually speaking, this is who the LORD is to David.
- This type of imagery, personification, and figure of speech will be used throughout this psalm. The LORD will be described as riding on cherubims, but the LORD is not like Aquaman riding on dolphins. These are figures of speech, not scientific statements.
- David was at death’s door many times in his life. He was surrounded by enemies in his younger days and in his later days. Saul and Saul’s loyalists. David’s own family turned on him.
- Then there are four major battles against the Philistines who Saul would not deal with. David is almost killed in one of the battles but is rescued by Abishai. David is told he’s too old to fight anymore and needs to stay off the battlefield. Israel goes on to defeat the Philistines and remove four more giants like Goliath in these battles.
David gets an answer (vss 7-15)
- Powerful imagery here
David instructs Israel about his faith that works as opposed to dead faith (vss 16-29)
- David’s theology does not fit into evangelical, protestant, baptist, theology. His prayer comes across as arrogant because he talks about how he’s trusted the LORD by doing right. Baptists would be quick to correct David. David is heretic, they’d say. He confuses faith with “works.” David would probably respond that their faith is vain. They confuse faith with imagination or knowledge.
- 18:24-25 is what Paul will explain in Romans 2 and Titus 1:15. God as a mirror (vss 24-26) just James says to draw near to God and he’ll draw near to you. Jesus ultimately taught this about the Father.
David never separates his faithfulness and God’s grace in his life (vss 30-48)
- I mention this because that the faithfulness of a man is not connected with God’s grace. Then Ephesians 2:8-9 is used to make each irrelevant of the other. NOT WORKS! We might say.
- Gentleness and greatness (vs 35)
49-50 David is grateful to the LORD
