Psalm 18 - The Lord Is My Rock And My Fortress Series

THE LORD IS MY ROCK AND MY FORTRESS

TEXT: Psalm 18:1-50

Psalms 18:1-3 (KJV) To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said, I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. [2] The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. [3] I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. . .

I. INTRODUCTION—ROCK OF AGES

-One of the greatest hymns of the church is one written by August Toplady who was a pastor in England in 1763. Toplady was traveling in a deep gorge of Burrington Combe in Mendip Hills when a ferocious storm settled in on him.

-He managed to find a spot that was just a shelf under a very large rock but it provided him shelter for the evening as the storm raged about him. He wrote the song, “Rock of Ages”:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Not the labour of my hands

Can fulfill Thy law's demands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone;

Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress;

Helpless, look to Thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Saviour, or I die!

While I draw this fleeting breath,

When mine eyes shall close in death,

When I soar to worlds unknown,

See Thee on Thy judgment throne,

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee.

-David gives this kind of expression when he affirms that the Lord is a Rock that he can put all of his trust in. David knew what it was like to find a safe place among the rocks as he fled from Saul and the Philistines and a host of other enemies. In fact, it would be to the rocks that he bolted when Absalom, his own son, wanted to hunt him down and kill him as well.

II. PSALM 18

-There is another rendering of this psalm that is almost word-for-word in 2 Samuel 22. There are some other matters are unique to this psalm:

• It was designed for public worship for deliverance over multiple enemies including Saul (superscription notes this).

• It is the fourth largest psalm. It is the longest one to this point in the Psalter.

• It has a common theme of gratitude for deliverance and victory scattered through it.

• It is also a psalm of kingship of the work of the Messiah.

• It falls into the category as one of the thanksgiving psalms along with many others that are too numerous to list.

Steven Lawson—In every soul testing trial, the believer must find strength in a refuge greater than himself.

III. THE EXPOSITION OF PSALM 18

-For this psalm, I found from The Outline Bible by Harold Wilmington a helpful outline to help me to be able to see the different divisions. We can see David’s delight, his distress, his deliverance, and his descendants through the course of this psalm.

A. Psalm 18:1-3—David’s Delight

Psalms 18:1-3 (KJV) To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said, I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. [2] The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. [3] I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

-David starts the whole matter of worship of the Lord by saying that he loves the Lord. This expression is found only one other time in the Psalms (116:1) and a very unusual word for love is used. It is related to a deep-seated compassion. When David began to understand the work of God in his life as a deliverer and a rock, it added to his devotion.

-One matter of worship is to look back at the victories and deliverances the Lord has already brought us to at this point. From this point in David’s life, he was now the king, but he counted it a higher honor to be a servant of the Lord than to be a reigning king.