Psalm 18 | “A Love Song”

Preston Highlands Baptist Church

Pray the Psalms

This week we’re beginning a six-week series through six psalms (18-23). We’ll pick back up in Exodus in August.

Why study the psalms? To help our prayer life. Do you struggle to pray? Get in the psalms. Read them slowly and carefully and meditatively. Make them your prayers. The heat of summer can make us tired and lethargic. So can the “heat” of despair, loneliness, anxiety, fear, frustration, and sin. The psalms are God’s gift to us, giving us water in a dry and thirsty land.

They also give us a language to pray in we wouldn’t have otherwise. The late pastor Tim Keller, in his excellent book on prayer, says that the psalms give us a wide spectrum of prayers because if we’re left to ourselves, to our cultures or natural temperaments, there are many types of prayers we’d never pray. He’s worth quoting at length here:

“The Psalms contain heights and exuberant outbursts that melancholic types would never produce on their own. There are depths of heart insight that extroverted people might never discover. There are complaints and blunt questions to God of which introverted and compliant people are less capable.

We would never produce the full range of biblical prayer if we were initiating prayer according to our own inner needs and psychology. It can only be produced if we are responding in prayer to who God is as revealed in the Scripture. The biblical God is majestic and tender, holy and forgiving, loving and inscrutable. That is why prayer can never be primarily abject confessions or triumphalistic praise or plaintive appeals – it cannot be mainly any one type of expression. Some prayers in the Bible are like an intimate conversation with a friend, others like an appeal to a great monarch, and others approximate a wrestling match. Why? In every case the nature of the prayer is determined by the character of God, who is at once our friend, father, lover, shepherd, and king. We must not decide how to pray based on what types of prayer are the most effective for producing the experiences and feelings we want. We pray in response to God himself. God’s Word to us contains this range of discourse – and only if we respond to his Word will our own prayer life be as rich and varied.”[1]

Reading and studying the psalms will help your prayer life more than anything I know. So I want us to spend these weeks learning and growing in prayer.

A Love Song

Psalm 18 is our text today. It’s a song of “triumphalist praise,” announcing and celebrating God’s deliverance of king David. It’s a song about victory and freedom, a song of joy in God’s salvation of his king from all his enemies. It’s a song that teaches us how to rejoice in the salvation of God.

It’s also a love song from David to the Lord. Love bookends the psalm. In verse 1, David says he loves the Lord. In verse 50, the Lord expresses his love for David.

This psalm shows us how love for God works. Why should we love God? How can we love God? By understanding that he loves us first. David loves the Lord because the Lord loves him. Or as the apostle John says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10).

Love Refined by Fire

This prayer is a love song, but it also teaches us that God’s love doesn’t make life easier. This psalm shows us that David’s love is refined and the Lord’s love is revealed through trials.

Notice the introduction to the psalm before verse 1. David wrote this song as a result of walking through the fire. He had “enemies” he needed “rescuing” from.

Some context here will help. In 1 Samuel 16, the obscure, young shepherd boy David was anointed as the next king of Israel. It says that “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward” (v. 13). David was chosen by God and given God’s Spirit.

But that didn’t mean his life was easy. We don’t know how many years went by between that moment and 2 Samuel 2 when David was officially installed as king of Israel. But they were years full of uncertainty and pain. Saul, the man David served, becomes jealous of him, so jealous he tries to kill him multiple times, but David escapes into the hills.

None of this happened because the Spirit left David. All of it happened according to the plan of God. No one who serves the Lord gets a pass from pain. As Paul says after being stoned, “Though many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). After Jesus was baptized and anointed with the Holy Spirit, he was driven into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1). As Old Testament scholar Alec Motyer says, “The Holy Spirit and conflict belong together.”[2] To be a good and faithful king, David needed to learn war (v. 34). He needed to understand the strength (v. 32) and gentleness (v. 35) of the Lord. So the Lord sent him into the wilderness, literally and metaphorically, to teach him and make him into the man God wanted him to be. In all this, he loved the Lord. Why? Because he knew the Lord loved him.

This psalm is a love song written in the furnace of affliction. David’s love for God is deep and rich because it was refined by fire. He loved God despite all the testing God took him through.

Do you have the Holy Spirit? Do you curse God in the wilderness or press into his love in it? Have you experienced the strength and gentleness of the Lord? Do you love him as a result?

Let’s see how David expresses his love for God by looking at the five sections of this psalm. We’ll look at David’s danger (vv. 1-6), the Lord’s deliverance (vv. 7-19), David and the Lord’s character (vv. 20-30), David’s conquest (vv. 31-45), and the Lord’s praise (vv. 46-50).

David’s Danger

Verses 1-6 describe David’s danger. In verse 2, he uses a bunch of metaphors to describe how he escaped from Saul. One such example is in 1 Samuel 23:24-28. David lived in “the rock” (v. 25) and escapes from Saul by running around the mountain.

This wasn’t just a game of hide and seek. Saul was trying to kill David. This is what he refers to in verses 4-5. David is a man with a target on his back. He’s staring death in the face, “the snares of death confronted me” (v. 5).

What does he do? Verse 6, “I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help.” And what happens? “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”

This verse is about the effectiveness of prayer. When we cry out to the Lord, he hears us. He’s not deaf like our idols. His ears are always open to his children. David was in danger and he knew where to go. He knew who would listen. He knew who would meet him where he was.

What good father doesn’t bend down low and listen to his children when they’re hurting? And no one has bent as low as the Lord. He sits enthroned over the universe yet bends down to engage his children.

The Lord’s Deliverance

In verses 7-19, we see the Lord’s deliverance. These verses describe a theophany, or when God makes his presence known, in ways that remind us of the parting of the Red Sea (fire and cloud, parting of the waters), and Mount Sinai which was on fire and wrapped in smoke and shook violently.

As I’ve mentioned in our study of Exodus, the exodus functions in the Bible like a paradigm, or pattern, for how God will save his people in the future. We may read verses 7-15 and think, “But nothing like this actually happened in David’s life as recorded in 1 Samuel.” David uses the language of the exodus because he sees his deliverance as no less miraculous than Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea. He uses the exodus to interpret his experience because the way the Lord worked at the exodus is how he works to save all his people.

Look at the result of this amazing theophany in verses 16-19. The display of God’s power results in action at the point of David’s need. God employs his power to help his helpless son. As Derek Kidner says, “In God’s hands, absolute power serves the ends of perfect freedom.”[3]

David is poetically saying that the Lord will move heaven and earth to rescue his children, that he uses his strength to help his people. Why? “Because he delighted in me” (v. 19). The Lord rescues us because he delights in us. The Lord doesn’t have to love his people; he wants to.

David and the Lord’s Character

In verses 20-30, we see David and the Lord’s character. Verses 20-24 sound like they’re saying David is sinless, or that God saves him because of his good behavior. But this isn’t self-righteousness. David is simply asserting that he’s in the right in his dealings with Saul.

David doesn’t believe he’s sinless. He says in Psalm 143:2, “No one living is righteous before you.” He’s saying that he’s done nothing to deserve the way Saul is treating him. As a result the Lord “rewards” him with protection and safety.

Verses 25-30 are about God’s character and action. Notice the emphasis on God’s action in verses 27-30. David isn’t boasting in this song; he’s praising the Lord.

“Humble people” in verse 27 shows us what kind of people the Lord loves to save. God is for the under-dogs. Throughout the psalms, we see God’s care for the poor (10:2), the afflicted (22:24), the weak (35:10), and the needy (68:10, 86:1).

Remember how Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:2). Who does the Lord bless? Those who’re in need and know it. Those who understand and admit their spiritual poverty, their weakness, and their affliction are saved by the Lord. In other words, the Lord only saves people who know they need saving.

David’s Conquest

In verses 31-45, we see David’s conquest. David swiftly defeats his enemies, but he makes it clear who really won the battles: “God who equipped me with strength…he made my feet like the deer…he trains my hands for war…you have given me the shield of your salvation…you made my enemies turn their backs to me…you made me the head of the nations.”

In verse 31, David says the Lord is “a rock” (vv. 2, 46). In the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, Moses says the Lord is “the Rock”: “For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice” (vv. 3-4). The Lord is the unmovable and unmoving One. He’s strong and provides refuge and protection.

But then in verse 35, David says something amazing, “Your gentleness made me great.” The Lord is a velvet-covered Rock. He’s strong yet soft, hard yet calm, tough yet tender, uncompromising yet thoughtful. The Lord is strong as a rock and gentle as a doe.

God was gentle with David, not harsh, and this gentleness “made him great.” Experiencing the Lord’s strength and gentleness changes us. In him we find someone who won’t leave or abandon us and someone who’ll hug us; someone who’ll fight for us and someone who’ll cry with us. This kind of love creates courage in us to face the world. His velvet steel “makes us great.” When the Lord stoops down to us, listens to us and cares for us like a good father, we’re raised up to do great things, namely, to serve him and others.

The Lord’s Praise

In verses 46-50, the song ends with praise to the Lord. David closes by saying that the Lord will love him and his descendants “forever” (v. 50). He must’ve wondered how his descendants, those in his kingly line, could be established “forever.” Isaiah picked up on this and speaks of one who’ll “reign on David’s throne…forever” and “of the increase of his government there will be no end” (9:7).

How could there be a king who reigns forever? Isaiah’s answer is that there will be a child who’ll be born who’ll be the “Mighty God” (9:6). He’ll be born, therefore human, but divine. One of David’s descendants will be given a kingdom and never lose it because of his divine and indestructible life. Jesus, the ultimate Son of David, is this King.

David praises the Lord that his line will be preserved so that a King for the whole world can come from him. This is why Paul quotes verse 49 in Romans 15 in a string of prophecies that say that Jesus came for the Gentiles and the Jews (vv. 8-12).

The greatest Son of David Jesus Christ came to be the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the care and provision the Lord showed David. When we look at Jesus, we see him doing all the things he did for David in Psalm 18. He saw us in danger from enemies too great for us and moved heaven and earth to rescue us. He swiftly conquered our greatest enemies, sin, Satan, and death by dying on the cross and rising on the third day.

Jesus, the only truly righteous one, left heaven and came to earth, not in a display of cataclysmic power, but in a display of strength through weakness. He allowed himself to be defeated so we could be victorious. He brings those who trust in him into a “broad place,” a place we can live and move and be free, because he delights in us.

Whatever danger you’re in, call out to him. He loves to save the honest and humble. He’ll light up your darkness. And he’ll be the strong yet tender Father your heart aches for.

[1]Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), 59-60.

[2]Alec Motyer, Psalms by the Day: A New Devotional Translation (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2016), 50.

[3]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 93.