If you're visiting, we're working through some of the psalms, and this morning we come to Psalm 18, just by way of introduction. I was sitting at the table with my wife this past week, and she said, so what psalm are you going to preach? And I said, I don't know, I think Psalm 18. She goes, oh, you've got to do Psalm 18. She says, that's an amazing, powerful psalm. And I said, I don't know, I said, it's a tough psalm. It's really a challenging psalm. She goes, who cares about you? I'm excited to hear the text. And that really helped me. So I was thankful that, and I realized at least at that point why the Lord gives us wives. Psalm 18. I'm going to focus on the first 19 verses this morning. Although we'll look at the kind of big picture of the whole thing, the first 19 verses are what we'll be focusing on. So, Psalm 18. to the choir master, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord rescued him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said, I love you, O Lord, my strength. 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. I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me. The torrents of destruction assailed me. The cords of Sheol entangled me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord. To my God, I cried for help. From His temple, He heard my voice and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked. The foundations also of the mountains 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. He bowed the heavens and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew. He came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness His covering. His canopy around Him, thick clouds, dark with water. Out of the brightness before Him, hailstones and coals of fire broke through the clouds. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows and scattered them. He flashed forth lightnings and routed them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare. At your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils. He sent from on high. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and 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. He brought me out into a broad place. He rescued me because He delighted in me. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word. I have always been moved by something that happened in Israel's history. Something that was said in Israel's history about their relationship with the Lord. And it was this. They said in Deuteronomy, for what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us for whatever reason we may call upon Him. that's a remarkable statement isn't it what great nation has that for whatever reason we can call up and he hears let me ask the question this morning as we open up this psalm how often do you call upon the Lord how often do you cry out to the Lord I'm not really talking about this morning the daily routines maybe a prayer and typical prayer under the normal circumstances of life I'm asking how much have you ever stopped and cried out to Him and said, deliver me, Lord. Save me. Can you think of moments in the course of life where you stopped and you said, I just can't do this anymore. I've come to the end. I have nothing else. There's no answer in this. The grief is too great. The pain is too much. The situation is just way too beyond me. The fear is too overwhelming. You have these times. Or you will have. When you face these moments, if you've not already, when everything feels taken from you and the fear of it all, there's a total sense of your own frailty and the realization that there's absolutely nothing you can do to either get out of the circumstance or deal with the circumstance. the fear has totally overcome you to the point of despair. Have you cried out at times like this? Can you think about times you've cried out? It may just have been help, one word. It may just have been rescue. What we constantly find throughout the Psalms in the life of God's people is this phenomenon. That's why I say it. Is that through the course of life, we're seeing all throughout the Psalms this kind of phenomenon of the psalmist crying out, Save me, O Lord. Deliver me, O Lord. In the day of my distress, I called out to the Lord. I sounded up to Him. And every single time, in the Psalms, it's really amazing, the next thing that follows is He answered. He answered. You have it, we considered in Psalm 3. Every single one of these circumstances, you get an answer. Psalm 18 is wonderful this morning because it shows us God answering the King in His distress. Answering the King in His distress. And the purpose here is to show us the reality of things. He desires for His people to know that He will deliver you, that He's with you, that He doesn't leave you, and that you have this great weapon to call out to Him. So, as I run through this this morning and as we consider Psalm 18, I want you to think about the story that's being told here. And I want you to see your story in this story. When you see this, earthly fears are confronted and you live in this glorious assurance that the Lord is always surrounding you as with a shield. Look at that imagery. We'll look at that. You'll notice that this psalm was written to the chief musician. First thing it says, to the chief musician. So it was designated as one that would be sung in corporate worship. When God's people would come together, they would sing this. The chief musician would, this would be a very prominent psalm for the corporate worship of God's people. It's a big one. Psalm 18 is a big one. And I say that because this is not the only place it's found in the Scripture. This is also found in 2 Samuel chapter 22 at the very end of David's life. Almost verbatim, there's a few changes, but almost verbatim, this entire psalm is put there in 2 Samuel chapter 22. And I find it moving when the Holy Spirit does something like that. Telling us something. He's telling us that this psalm has a lot of importance for God's people. This psalm is telling a great story for God's people. This psalm is something you need to understand. And you know, I just think that's an important point because I tried to dodge it. I tried to stay away from it. The superscription is the longest in the Psalter. The title there that is given, you'll notice that this is the psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this psalm on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul. Now that is a remarkable statement, isn't it? When was the day that God delivered David from the hand of all of his enemies? David's life was a mess if you look at it in many ways in terms of problems and fights and battles and just a lot of tragedy. Well, as I said, this psalm was recorded at the end of his life in 2 Samuel 22. And then in chapter 23 you have the last words. David's last words. So the Holy Spirit wanted us here to tell us something about the importance of it, not just for David, but the importance of it for God's people. It's as if David, at the end of his life, as an old man, turned around and he looked back. He looked back over the course of his long life and all that he had been through, everything that had happened, and remember what Saul did to him? There were times he was in the desert. I've never had to flee from anyone. But there were times this man was in the desert and twice in one day, spears were hurled at him. Once, Saul trying to pin him to the wall, it would have been over. He was hunted like an animal by Saul's armies. Out in the rocks and in the rough areas, the region. How many times and how many wars was he confronted with? The Moabites and the Edomites and the Philistines and then the horror of his own son Absalom who would take the throne from him. This is an amazing moment because he's not describing one event. That's key. He's looking over the whole course of life as an old man. He's standing back from the whole thing and a life full of attack, full of affliction, full of sorrow, full of pain, full of suffering. And he sits down and in one swoop pens this psalm summarizing every single deliverance to describe and tell one great story. One powerful story to tell us what the Lord and what the Lord had been to him throughout the whole course of his life. so since this was for public worship I trust you see this is going to have a large bearing and an important application for us living in 2012 first part of the psalm describes how precious the Lord is to him and in this case he is moved to love by what the Lord has been to him the Lord has been absolutely wonderful to him but I'm not going to start there. I believe verses 1 and 2 will take on a whole lot more meaning when we look at it here in a bit. Let's go down a little further. The heart of the issue comes at verse 6. Look at verse 6. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God and He heard my voice from His temple. This is not the earthly temple He's talking about. This is the heavenly temple. And remember, this is a single event in terms of the whole big picture. He's describing every deliverance. And he makes this really profound statement up front here. In his distress, in my distress, verse 4, here's what it was like. Now this is all poetry. This is all poetry. The cords of death encompassed me. The torrents of destruction assailed me. The cords of Sheol entangled me. The snares of death confronted me. Every kind of attack that he experienced in the course of life, he is summarizing here. In fact, I actually like the Old King James in verse 4, since it is the word Belial that uses the language of the floods of ungodly men attacked me. Every kind of sorrow, every kind of affliction, every kind of evil under the sun and stared them right in the face throughout the whole course of life. And David is looking at it. He's looking at the whole course of it. And if you've ever done that, and we've got a lot of older brothers and sisters here, and I'm sure you can testify, if you were to stand back with clarity and you look over the whole course of life, there were a whole bunch of awful things that happened along the way. Dangers and sorrows and attacks from principalities and powers and death itself being the great enemy. And sometimes we don't realize when we're going through it how present these things are in terms of spiritual realities. And maybe now you're standing back and many of these things you've forgotten, but then there are those things you've not forgotten. The big things. There are times when we sink and we have no strength and no ability to deal with it in and of ourselves. And every time, David said, when he's speaking of his life, every single time I look down that hall way of life, every single time the Lord delivered, He saved. He rescued. Every single cry, every single petition He heard. It's a remarkable statement, isn't it? You ever thought about it? Revelation 8 gives us a scene. Revelation 8 gives us a scene. And in that scene, there was an angel standing there before the Lord. And he has this golden censer in his hand. And he's standing there at the altar. And he's given much incense that he should offer it up with the prayers of the saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne room in heaven. So there is the angel doing this. And this smoke would ascend. This incense smoke, taking all the language of the Old Testament, and it would ascend right up on into the throne room of God which is your prayers, and God would receive it. He would smell it in his nostrils. What did John see? The angel takes this censer full of incense and he mixes the prayers of the saints and it all ascends to the throne. And the Lord in that passage is communicating something that had always been true throughout history. That every single cry that happens on earth from His church, every single cry that happens here on earth of His people sighing and crying over the abominations. Ezekiel, what, 8? everything that is happening to His people, the hurting over the evil and the injustices that we moan about and that the afflictions that we see and the pains and the sufferings of death that are all around us, these cords the psalmist is describing, all of these prayers of the saints are pictured as coming right up on in to the throne room of God and He is considering. And not just considering, He's hearing. And he's taking them in. And he's listening. And he knows intimately all the cries of his people. This is an amazing God. How many people of his people have ever existed? Every single cry? And all the cries on earth, all the suffering, all the pain, he's telling us, dear children, I hear it. And I see it. Now let me take you back to Psalm 18. David is describing this. When these evils came upon me, I was too weak. I was unable to do anything about it. I couldn't even think beyond it. And when these sorrows overwhelmed me, I cried. I cried out. And He heard. He heard me from His temple. That's Revelation 8. You see why I ask the question, do you cry out? There is a truth in that song we sing. Needless pain, what needless pain we bear because we don't carry things to the Lord in prayer. There is an earthly consequence to that. We see what's happening all around us right now in this sad world. And I know I've been emphasizing that, but maybe I'm a little too over-exaggerative. But I don't know. To me it seems like things are just getting worse and worse and worse. And I ask the question, what's next? look at the state of things who can argue with me and it's interesting that the Lord would say at the end of Revelation you know you really should be crying out even so Lord Jesus come quickly now I could take the little question further do you cry out that one come come so Ephesians says rulers and authorities and cosmic powers over the present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, these are what are attacking us? Now the question is, does God just sit there and hear? What does He do? That's the question. It's interesting. Just one more second on Revelation 8. In Revelation 8, there's noise in heaven. There's all this praise in heaven around the throne. There's the glassy sea. Everything's calm in heaven. and they're praising and the angels are saying holy, holy, holy the Lord God Almighty and all of a sudden in Revelation silence for a half hour. And when these prayers and smoke ascend up into the throne Old Testament writers would have recognized that every time things went silent in heaven something was about ready to happen. Somebody was ready to get up. And so the angel takes the censer and he puts fire in it. Guess what he does? Wham! Right back down to the earth. Fire is thrown from heaven to the earth. That gives me chills. Does that mean he heard the prayer and he answered? In other words, the angels there are standing there and the prayers are incensed by the Savior who's interceding on our behalf and in the place where the prayers were coming up before the throne, He fills up the incense thing that's now empty with fire and flings it back down upon the earth in judgment. And I suggest that we need to start looking at things a little bit differently of what's happening on the earth. God's not transforming it. He's judging it. If you understand this imagery, you understand Psalm 18. What happens in Psalm 18 at this point? You ever wondered, is God really hearing our prayers? Is God really answering our prayers? Here's what the psalm does. The prayers, the incense, go right up on into his nostrils and no one expected it all of a sudden. The enemies are laughing this whole guy off. The enemies are saying, what can he do? There's no help for him in God. And all of a sudden, one day, God got up off His throne. And he got mad. And oh, it was awesome. You know, I try not to use that word too much. Young people use it all. That's awesome. There's only a few times awesome should be used. Psalm 18 is one. This is awesome. Let me tell you about something, says David. Let me tell you about what I saw. I've never seen anything like this in my life. My prayer went up to his ears and all of a sudden you're not going to believe what happened. The earth started shaking. It reeled and rocked. All of the mountains were trembling and quaking. He was furious in his anger. Smoke went up from his nostrils. Devouring fire from his mouth. Glowing coals flamed forth from him. All of a sudden you're not going to... the heavens bowed down before Him. And there He was. And He was riding. He was riding on a cherub in the wind. And all around Him was thick darkness and thick clouds. And you know what He started doing? He started destroying. Hailstones and coals of fire hit the earth. When He spoke, this voice was like thunder and His arrows that came out of His bow were like the lightnings that you see and it started striking the earth and everything started getting hit. He bowed the heavens and He came down. And you know what He did for me? He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me, verse 16, because they were too strong for me. The Lord took me and He brought me out into a broad place. And you say, wow. that is awesome what you have described here is a storm theophany and what David is doing is taking all the language of God's deliverances of his people throughout history and he's putting it in one great story and you'll notice this especially Israel being drawn out remember Moses being drawn out they passed through the sea and they were brought to the good land and he's applying it now. He's taking all this deliverance in the Scriptures and he's saying, oh, that was for me. And the Lord wants me to see this, doesn't He? It's yours. It's a really amazing moment. A storm theophany, which is what this is, was the terrible presence of the Lord in the form of a storm. And He's represented in that storm on a chariot throne. And remember, Ezekiel describes this. The wheels were moving. And this is the moving chariot throne of God. And He is coming down on top of that storm. The darkness is all around Him. The cherub are the riders like horses. And they are going straightway wherever the Lord desires for them to go. And remember, there's a wall, a firewall of glory all around the throne. The wings touch so that that glory won't incinerate anything it comes to. Even the angels. And there's torches of fire passing between the cherub. It is an awesome sight in His glory. And there He comes, riding on the wings of the storm. And you see, beloved, all of this is being borrowed from the language of the Old Testament when the Lord descended on Sinai and the blackness and the darkness. And He pummeled Egypt with the plagues sending out hailstones and coals of fire and He parted the Red Sea and He uses the name... well, He's thinking of Moses here. He Mosesed me out. He drew me out. I've never seen anything like it. Now I find it moving because the intention here is for us to see this morning that every single cry, every single cry of His people in distress of His sheep in this sad, sin-cursed world is being heard and He has made a promise. Jesus said it. He will avenge His elect speedily. He'll come and get them. Did this happen literally in David's life? That's what you're thinking. Yes and no. The language here is poetic to describe what God was like in His holy justice. and that you would ever be fixed on that in your times of distress. And he's using this terrifying language to assure us God is surrounding you. Oh, you don't see it right now. The biblical writers were constantly describing the terrifying things of nature. And you know, sure, God uses means in these, but you know they always understood more directly who the primary cause. They were always looking at him through these things. Remember when Elisha, his servant, was scared because the king of Syria sent horses and chariots to surround the city and he's panicked. Remember what Elisha did? Alas, my master! This was the servant. What shall we do? Elisha said, do not be afraid. For those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed and said, O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. You know, the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him. You can't see it right now. But it's so. And the point of all of this is to say this morning, God is with us. And He'll never let us fall. He will keep His people. And the reality is, every time we cry out for evil, and this should really motivate your prayers, He's hearing it. And He's acting. And so the rest of this psalm, you see, describes the life of deliverance. Verse 28, You enlighten my darkness. The Word of God is proven. Such confidence is birthed now. He is a shield to those who trust Him. And David rehearses again how powerful the Lord has been to preserve and win the victory. He retells the story now in confidence. That's the second half of this psalm. I want you to look back at verse 1 and 2. Now let's start it over. I love you, Lord. I don't know how many times we should just pause and think about something in the course of a sermon or the Scriptures when something like that, but notice the simplicity of that. I love you. It's what I want to hear from those making profession of faith. Why do you want to do it? Because I love them. Look what he's done for me. And that's what David is describing. He uses seven metaphors to describe the Lord and what He's been like. And He's all really summarized with this imagery again. He's borrowing from all the history of Israel. The rock. And we know what David is saying. I too was hid in the cleft of that rock. The psalm is not just backwards looking, is it? The psalm is forward looking. And you'll notice that David is still looking for something in this psalm. In verse 3, he talks about calling on the Lord still. And at the end of the psalm in verse 50, he says, Great deliverance he gives to his king and shows mercy to his anointed, to David and his descendants forevermore. David was given deliverance to make way for the greatest deliverance of his greater son. And you see, that's where this goes. David has in mind another victory yet to come. And you see, it's talked about. It's talked about in verse 49 when it says, this victory is going to be spoken of among the Gentiles. That's you. And Romans 15 picks up on that. Paul says, guess what? This psalm's all about Jesus, if you will. This psalm tells us, this psalm is about the victory that Jesus will accomplish and now has accomplished at the cross. Would you read it just for a minute and we'll close with this with that in mind? The cords of death encompassed me. The torrents of destruction assailed me. The cords of Sheol entangled me. The snares of death confronted me. Oh, they did, didn't they? At the cross, the earth reeled in rock. One day the whole thing went black. He hung there. The fire of God's wrath fell on His Son. And the Lord took Him and drew Him out of many waters. And that Son rose victorious over the grave. And ultimately, v. 20 is speaking of Him. The Lord rewarded Him according to His righteousness. According to the cleanness of His hands, He kept the ways of the Lord. He kept Himself, v. 23, from iniquity. All the enemies have fallen, v. 38, under His feet. He has been made, v. 43, the head of the nations. His name, v. 49, is being glorified among the Gentiles. Great is the deliverance God gives to this king. And we are hit in the cleft of that rock. And you see, it's that story that is the story of our deliverance. I can't help but see here through this psalm, the Lord is declaring to us this morning that all the cries of His people that have ever gone up throughout history, He answered at the cross. He answered. every single cry, He answered at the cross. And since He heard the cry of His Son, and today since that King sits enthroned over all and took on the pains of death for us, He has promised you something. You know what He's promised you? No matter what happens to you in this sad world, He's with you. Right now, he has surrounded you as with a shield. I wish I could do what Elisha did and say, open their eyes and let them see. But I can say, Lord, open their eyes of faith and let them see. When you stand back over the long course of your life, many of you are older and able to do that. Can't you say, even now, that no matter how you've been tried and afflicted and no matter how hard it's been along the way, how much evil you've seen under the sun, how much sorrow, how much hardship. Here you are today hearing a message like this. And the Lord's preserved you through it all. That's the story, isn't it? That's the truth, isn't it? And you know what? There's still one last deliverance to come. What I described in this psalm of the glorious appearing of the Lord, even though you can't see it, He has always protected us with this kind of care, anger against our enemies. There is one last day coming when you know what? Everything you have described here will be physical. And He's going to storm out of heaven one last time. Heaven and earth will shake. And the sun and the moon are going to go black. And the earth is going to rock and reel. And guess who's going to come on the clouds? the storm, theophany. It's going to be the Lord Jesus. And the apostle had to remind the struggling, afflicted Christians of this in Thessalonica that the Lord's going to repay. Don't you? I know you're hurting. I know you're seeing the evils and the sorrows. He's going to repay with affliction those who afflict you. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might. Listen to this. When He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at among those who believe. So I kind of bring it full scope now. Do you cry out to Him? Does He hear from you? Jesus said, Men ought always to pray and not lose heart. You ought always to pray and not become discouraged. Why? Will not God give justice to His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them? Jesus asks. I tell you, He's coming and He'll avenge them. He will rescue them speedily. Let me close with this. Psalm 20. If you just look over there. I'm just going to read it. In the day of my trouble, may the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Verse 6, Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed. He will answer Him from His holy heaven with the saving might of His right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall. Right? But we rise and stand upright. O Lord, save the King. May He answer us when we call. And I conclude this sermon with a cry. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen. O Lord our God, that is our prayer. Lord Jesus, come quickly. Preserve Your sheep. Help them in the day of trouble. May we constantly cry out to You. And may we know and see and trust in Your powerful deliverance that You've given to us in Your Almighty Son. The King lives. The King reigns forever. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.