Psalm 18 is one of my all-time favorite Psalms. I have found great strength and encouragement by turning to this Psalm in the midst of some of the most difficult seasons of my life.
The big overview of this Psalm is that David is praising God for his salvation over his life; it’s literally a Psalm of salvation.
Most commentators believe that this Psalm was written near the end of David’s life as he looks back over the many victories that God has given to him. The emotional feeling of this song is filled with excitement because of the hard victories that had been won.
The feeling would be similar to the feeling that we get when the Huskers win a hard fought game or when you overcome a really serious battle like a fight with cancer or you experience victory in some area of addiction or restoration in a broken marriage or a rebellious teen begins to follow the Lord.
The bottom line here is that David’s mind is filled with God’s saving work, in and through his life. David rehearses how he called out to God for salvation during some of the most difficult seasons of his life (vss. 1 – 6) and then he describes God’s response to his cries for help (vss. 7 – 19). He then gives a lengthy description of his saving relationship with God (vss. 20 – 45) and then he praises God for his salvation at the very end (vss. 46 – 50).
#1: DAVID CALLS OUT TO GOD FOR SALVATION (1 – 6)
In verse 6, David specifically says, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help”. David isn’t just crying out to some far-away god who is unconcerned about his people. David is calling out to the God that he knows personally.
He actually refers to God with eight personal names. He calls out to God as his strength, his rock, his fortress, his deliverer, his refuge, his shield, his salvation and his refuge. And it’s not just that David calls out for help, he calls out for salvation from the God whom he knows and whom he loves.
He loves God because he has personally experienced the presence and the power of God’s salvation in his life.
#2: GOD RESPONDS TO DAVID’S CALL FOR SALVATION (6 – 19)
In the latter half of verse 6, David says that, “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” And then for the next 13 verses, David launches into a description of God’s response to his call for help that is meant to absolutely knock our socks off. God doesn’t show up late to the fight and when he does show up for the fight he’s no pansy.
When God responds to David’s call for help the earth gets rocked and the mountains get shook at the sight of God in all of his anger. The image of God in these verses reminds me of the ferociousness with which God shows up to do battle against our enemies.
He has smoke coming out of his nose, breathing fire out of his mouth, great balls of fire getting shot at his enemies, the heavens parting like the Red Sea, the mighty wind as he rides into town cloaked in swirling darkness like a tornado of wind and rain with hailstones aimed at his enemies.
Whenever I find myself in trouble, this is the Father I want to have riding into the battle on my behalf. I want his voice to thunder in the ears of my enemies. I want to see the sky filled with arrows of bright lightning as my Father rescues me and annihilates my abusers.
I want to see the sea of difficulty part in front of me and as I make it to the other side I want to see the waves come crashing down on my enemy just like the Egyptians who had enslaved Israel for so many years and then faced the wrath of God in the Red Sea.
God’s response to David’s call for salvation is capped off with an image of God’s fatherly care over us as he describes God tenderly pulling him out of the pit of despair and fear and death.
Even though David’s enemies were too strong and mighty for him to overcome, there isn’t an enemy we face that won’t melt at the sight of our waring God who rescues us because as David says in verse 19, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me.”
In other words, God doesn’t just delight in rescuing you he actually delights in his relationship with you.
#3: DAVID DESCRIBES HIS SALVATION RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD (20 – 45)
I think the key to understanding this section of the text is found in verses 31 and 32 where David says, “For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock except our God? – the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless.”
These verses are the key to understanding this section of the text because as David describes his salvation relationship with the LORD it can sound like David believes he was saved by God because of his own righteousness.
In fact if you took verses 20 – 24 out of the context of the rest of the text and if you read them as literally pointing to David’s righteousness then you would arrive at the conclusion that David was a perfect man and God saved him because of his own hard worked perfection.
But when you bring in the context of verses 31 and 32 you get a picture of David’s relationship with God; a picture that illustrates God’s power to make sinful men into blameless men through their trust in him.
Because of David’s trust in God, David experienced an eternally life-saving relationship with God. And the benefits of this relationship were that David was made righteous by God, he was cleansed by God, his wickedness was washed away by God, he was blameless before God, he was innocent in God’s presence and God looked upon him as a perfect child.
David experienced the mercy and the humility and the provision and the strength and the safety and the salvation and the support and the steadiness and the victory and the deliverance and the rescue and the steadfast love of God.
In his salvation relationship with God, David had all of the resources of God at his disposal; namely the presence of God himself.
#4: DAVID PRAISES GOD FOR HIS SALVATION (46 – 50)
Once David has recounted his earnest crying out to God in the face of certain death as well as God’s response to his call and has furthermore paused to relish in his relationship with God, he can’t help but to praise God for his salvation.
It’s also important to note here that David lived his life resting on the promise of God from 2 Samuel 7:13 where God had promised to establish David’s throne forever through the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ.
So it’s not only David’s experience of God’s salvation over him but it’s also David’s hope in the eternal nature of God’s salvation that leads him to proclaim in verses 46 and 50 that “The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock and exalted be the God of my salvation… Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.”
The reality here is that God had given David the victory over his enemies, he had delivered him from his enemies, he had lifted him up out of the pit of despair, he had elevated him above his enemies and he had rescued him from death for all of eternity.
This God, the LORD, was worthy of David’s exuberant praise and he is worthy of our exuberant praise.
APPLICATION…
Why does this Psalm matter? What difference will it make in our lives? One scholar remarking on Psalm 18 says that “The light of Christ in this Psalm is like a floodlight behind an ice sculpture shining through and melting the ice with its heat” until all that we can see is the person and work of Jesus at the cross and the empty tomb extending to us the eternal hope of Heaven (Johnston 2014: 194).
The reality here is that we live in a broken world full of broken people with broken systems. The world is no more broken today than it was when David wrote this Psalm. And like us, David often struggled with placing his trust and his hope in broken pursuits.
Like us, David, at times, trusted in sexual addiction to be his savior or he trusted in political power to be his savior when he murdered his friend or he trusted in his own passivity to be his savior when he ignored the rape of his own daughter.
The reality is that David is just as much a product of living in a world broken by sin as we are. And yet that doesn’t change who God is. God is still the one who created the world and all of its inhabitants to perfectly bring him glory.
Our sin doesn’t shackle the God who makes the earth, quake. God had a plan all along to redeem us from our old enemies, Satan, Sin and Death.
That plan (which was made before the foundations of the earth were laid) was executed through Christ’s execution and victory over the grave three days later.
And now we live with the same kind of hope as David did as we cling to the hope of Christ’s return in glory to take us home to the presence of perfection as we are perfected once and for all in the presence of our heavenly Father.
CONCLUSION…
So how can we respond to this Psalm? What difference should this Psalm make in our lives? I want to submit 4 application points as we close:
#1: CRY OUT TO GOD FOR SALVATION…
Remember how David says that, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help” (vs. 6). Remember that it’s not just that David called out for help, he called out for salvation from the God whom he knew and loved.
He loved God because he had personally experienced the presence and the power of God’s salvation in his life. Crying out to God for salvation isn’t a one-time thing you do at a camp or a Sunday gathering. Crying out to God for salvation is the language of a Christian.
When you come to God, admit your sin, ask God to forgive you, confess your trust and belief in Jesus’s work at the cross and thank him for being faithful. Cry out to God for salvation.
#2: TRUST THAT GOD DELIGHTS IN YOU…
Remember that David says that God “heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears” (vs. 6). There isn’t an enemy you face that won’t melt at the sight of your waring God who is hell-bent on rescuing you because as David says in verse 19, “He (God) brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me.”
In other words, God doesn’t just delight in rescuing you he actually delights in his relationship with you. Spend time listening to God’s Word. Find a quiet place and hear from God. Write down what you hear. Trust that God will answer you because he delights in you.
#3: INVEST IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD…
Remember that in verses 31 and 32 David says, “For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock except our God? – the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless.”
David experienced the mercy and the humility and the provision and the strength and the safety and the salvation and the support and the steadiness and the victory and the deliverance and the rescue and the steadfast love of God.
In your salvation relationship with God, you have all of the resources of God at your disposal; namely the presence of God himself. Get into your Bible. Spend time in prayer. Join a gospel community. Invest in a relationship with God.
#4: PRAISE GOD FOR HIS SALVATION…
Never forget that “The LORD lives, and blessed be (our) rock and exalted be the God of (our) salvation… Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever” (vs. 46; 50).
God has given us the victory over our enemies. God has delivered us from our enemies. God has lifted us up out of the pit of despair. God has elevated us above our enemies and he has rescued us from Satan, Sin and Death for all of eternity. Praise God for his salvation!
God has done this work through Jesus at the foot of a bloody cross, in the doorway of an empty tomb with the promise of Heaven, signed, sealed and delivered by the power of the Holy Spirit. This God, the LORD, is worthy of our exuberant praise.