Then David spoke to the Lord the words of this song on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. the God of my strength in whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, my refuge, my savior. You saved me from violence. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. When the waves of death surrounded me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God. He heard my voice from his temple and my cry entered his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of heaven quaked and were shaken because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils and devouring fire from his mouth. Coals were kindled by him. He bowed the heavens also and came down with darkness under his feet. He rode upon a cherub and flew, and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness canopies around him, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. In the brightness before him, coals of fire were kindled. The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice. He sent out arrows and scattered them, lightning bolts, and He vanquished them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were uncovered at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils. He sent from above, He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place. He delivered me because He delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, he has recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord. I have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and as for his statutes, I did not depart from them. I was also blameless before him. and I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore, the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his eyes. With the merciful, you will show yourself merciful. With the blameless man, you will show yourself blameless. With the pure you will show yourself pure, and with the devious you will show yourself shrewd. You will save the humble people, but your eyes are on the Hati that you may bring them down. Amen. Thus far God's Holy Word tonight. About two weeks ago I had something terrible happen to me. I developed one of the most painful earaches in all my life. It was terrible. It was swimmer's ear basically. It was pretty simple. But it kind of grew and I mean in pain and in size. My ear was like flaming up and it hurt. Before that happened, of course, I did the smart thing and I could feel something was going on here. So I went to urgent care. Of course, my doctor was closed and I was like, you know, I'll just go to urgent care. I'll get some antibiotics. I don't even want to get, I don't want to let this start. It was before it was really bad. So I went to this doctor, and they saw me or whatnot, and I got some antibiotics. And the next day, it was worse. And I was thinking to myself, OK, well, not a big deal. And then the next day, it was even worse. And these antibiotics didn't do anything. And I was just freaking out here. I was really, really wanting it to get healed. And so me and Dorsey were talking, and I said, babe, you need to call the doctor. Our doctor is great, but he's always busy. I said, babe, you need to pull up. I just had a baby card and I don't want to have another baby card. You know, that whole issue. Tell them I'm a pastor and I've got to preach this Sunday. And I mean, we were really seeking deliverance. Okay? I was seeking help. I was in a bad place. I mean, you can kind of laugh about it. It's kind of funny. But at the same time, it's not funny. Because I was really hurting bad. Are you really hurting bad? Are you in need of help? You may not have an earache. Kids, you may not have an earache tonight, little ones, but there's a sense in which I know, because you're in the same world that I'm in, kids, and you're a sinner just like I'm a sinner, you need deliverance. You adults, I don't know what you're facing in your life. I don't know everything that's going on in your life. You could be here and you could know the Lord Jesus Christ. And you could be forgiven of all your sins. And there's still a sense in which you face enemies. And they're not Muslims in Pakistan, are they? But you still face real enemies. And we need, even as those who are saved, we still need deliverance, don't we? Do you need deliverance tonight? And are you seeking deliverance? Do you have a sense of urgency? Where do you go to for your help? Well, we go to the Lord, don't we? We have a psalm, a song if you will, here. It's a song of deliverance and it's 2 Samuel 22. We're looking at the first half. tonight and Lord willing we will look at the rest next week. It's in a section in this book that chapter 21 through 24 that reminds us that God is the deliverer of David. That David has not been forsaken. Now if you recall where we've been in this book from chapter 11 with the sin of Bathsheba and Uriah all the way to chapter 20 it's a big mess. David's a big mess. Rebellion, revolt, is God with David? Well, He is. And we see that in this final section, especially in this chapter. If you were a Hebrew analyst, and you could analyze the Hebrew and the structure, you would see a centrality here. This is focus. The Song of Deliverance. God is a Savior, isn't He? He's a Deliverer. And I want us to look at this theme tonight, and what we see tonight from this passage of Scripture. is that God powerfully and righteously delivers those who cry out to Him. It's that simple. It's a beautiful lesson really. God powerfully and righteously delivers those who cry out to Him. And there's a certain sense in which what I want to speak to you tonight, I have three points tonight, I want to give you reasons why you need to seek God for your deliverance and for your problems, just as I was seeking my doctor for help. Three reasons. We see one reason in verses one through seven. It's a simple reason. It's an encouraging reason. And that is this, that God hears. He hears. He hears those who cry out to Him. He's a prayer hearing God. Verse one and two. First part of verse two at least. We're reminded of the context. This is a song that David wrote on the day when the Lord delivered him from all of his enemies. This is not to be understood in historical chronological order, and yet we can, because it's placed here, because it's placed in this part, we can see this for all of David's life. from the hand of all of his enemies, from the hand of Saul. And this is Psalm 18. If you have your references and your cross notes, you'll notice that. This is actually Psalm 18. And the final version of Psalm 18 is a little bit different, just some slight alterations in this chapter. And the purpose for that is for the public worship of God. God in His wisdom inspired the editor of the book of Psalms to change it up just a wee bit for use in public worship. We sing that version and here's another one that's more succinct and more direct with David. We see how God hears those who cry out to him, those who cry out to him in faith. What is a crying out to God but faith? Notice the faith here in verse 2 and in 3 and in verse 4. Notice the many references to my rock. God is not just a rock. He's not just a fortress. He's not just a deliverer. but He's my fortress and my deliverer and He's my strength and the horn of my salvation. What's being described here? It's faith, isn't it? And of course, David writes in verse three, in whom I will trust. We have faith. Prayer comes from, if you will, faith. There's confidence here, verse four. There's a measure of assurance in faith. Now faith is not, sometimes true faith is weak. That's an encouraging point if you think about it. We're not saved because of our faith, we're saved because of Christ. And true faith, even if it's weak, connects us. But there is a certain sense, there has to be in some degree, confidence in God and who He is. That's part of faith. In verse 4 we see that. I will call upon the Lord, parentheses, who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from enemies." There's confidence here. There's faith. There's faith in distress. Verse 5 through 6. This is a Hebrew poetry. So we have, there's a way of describing the distress that David had. And in God's wisdom it's general. So that we can take it upon our lips in the Psalms and we can identify with it. The waves of death. It's imagery. We know there's not just warfare in that sense involved because of the next phrase, floods of ungodliness. He faced ungodly people both in his own nation but also of course the Gentiles. Sorrows of Sheol, snares of death, the same idea. Hebrew poetry is marked by parallelism. The same thing be said in two different ways. And this stress provoked an action and that action is prayer. Does your stress in your life provoke you to call upon the Lord. That's what he does. Verse 7, we see of course in verse 4, I will call upon the Lord. That's prayer. Verse 7, in my distress I called upon the Lord. I cried out to my God. We're talking about not just a popcorn type of prayer, quick word which is totally appropriate and I want you to do that. We're talking about fervent prayer. Have you ever gone out, maybe your back porch, by yourself, for an hour and just prayed. That's what we're talking about here. But the focus tonight is these last few words here, very important. He heard my voice from his temple and my cry entered his ears. These are very important words. Sometimes we can cry out to God in our problems, in our struggle with our sin, Perhaps we're in Pakistan. We're being faced with those type of struggles. And we're not in Pakistan, but you get my point. We face enemies and we cry out to God. And sometimes we can sense that God is not hearing us. You ever thought that? You ever cry out to God and wondered if he was hearing you? I apologize for my illustrations of my kids, but I have to say this. My wife, Dorsey, she's a good mom. She doesn't let Murray cry too long. She puts Murray down in our bed, and if you've been to our house, you know that our master bedroom is near the kitchen. She puts him down, he sleeps on our bed, takes a nap. And she listens. She has the door cracked. She's in the kitchen, maybe doing a few things in the kitchen, maybe teaching the kids in the living room or something. She's listening. She doesn't want Murray to cry out and for her not to hear him. And not help him. He's just a little baby. He's a helpless baby. I just noticed how sensitive she is to his needs. He cries out and what happens? She's there in a second. She feeds him. She changes his diaper. Whatever he needs. She won't let him suffer. She hears him. That's how God is. Now, I want to be realistic with you for a moment. I want to be a pastor to you for a moment. God does allow and control difficulties that come in your life. And even though you may be thinking to yourself, Sam, I mean, God's not answering my prayer right now. I mean, he's not always like that. And there's a sense in which you're right. Never allows us to cry out and just drown as it were. There are times where Dorsey, because of something she's doing, and I know this because I don't go to Murray, I keep doing what I'm doing, but she's busy. She can't get to him right away. But she never waits too long. God has promised us to give us the strength to face our difficulties. You may think he's not listening to you. You may think he's not hearing you. But to the degree that he's not listening or he's not answering your prayers, he's gonna give you the strength. He's gonna give you sufficient grace, sufficient grace. May not give you relief in the moment, but he'll give you sufficient grace. Now I want you to see here before I even go on is one of the things that we can do as Christians is we can forget the simple thing. There are times in my life where I forget to cry out. I'm gonna solve this problem. And I'm gonna figure it out. And I go through my day, I'm not praying. I can solve my problems. Oh, you know, this person just needs to change their mind, or if I just gotta do this harder, and you know, I'll find my parking spot, you know. I mean, even simple things like that, just pray. Cry out. Do you forget to pray? Are you consciously depending upon God? It's very natural for Murray to cry out, and for God's people. And no, we're not perfect. It's natural for us to cry out. And if you're not a person of prayer, if you're not crying out to God in your life, you need to ask yourself whether or not you really know Him. Kids, do you pray? Do you pray to God? Do you cry out to Him? This is the first reason why we should seek Him. Seek Him in prayer. To seek deliverance from Him, because He hears. He's there. He cares for us. Now the second reason is perhaps even more useful and helpful. Because if you're like me, you face enemies that are very formative, strong, and you don't see the way out. But God is powerful. He delivers powerfully. And that's what we see in verses eight through 20. So the second reason why you should seek God is because He's powerful. God powerfully delivers those who cry out to Him. Verses eight through 20. Why doesn't David, the human author here, why doesn't he just, if you go to the end of verse 20, you just look at the last line there. He delivered me. Why do we have all this language here? Why all this imagery? So we end with verse 7, He heard my voice from His temple. My cry entered His ears. At the very bottom of verse 20, He delivered me. Why all this imagery? Well, David, in the Holy Spirit, as it were, he wants us to feel, as much as we can feel, the power of God to save. We have here, in verses 8 and following, two language and poetic language that comes from two historic events in the life of Israel that remind them of God's power. The first one is Mount Sinai. I preached on this months ago. Right before God speaks from Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments, what's going on at Sinai? God's people are around Sinai, and there's a huge dark cloud, and there's lightning, and there's fire, and there's quaking and trembling. God's power is being manifested, and that's what's being communicated here. Verse 8, then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of heaven quaked. God's powerful. There's an earthquake coming. There's fire and smoke, verse 9. Verse 10, he bowed the heavens also and came down. He's present. He's coming down. It's exactly what happened at Mount Sinai. You have a reference to clouds, dark clouds. Verse 12, verse 13, if coals of fire, if thunder and lightning. You have verse 16 and verse 17, you have another image. Not just Sinai, the other time where God demonstrated His power to His people was at the Exodus when they crossed the Jordan. What happened? There's a sense in which God breathed, right? The wind blew and the water was split. Verse 16, and the channels of the sea were seen. I believe that's what's being described here. The channels of the sea were seen. The foundations of the world were uncovered. at the rebuke of the Lord. Verse 17, He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. It's just poetic language. It's not meant to be as if David was at the Exodus. It's just powerful language. God wants us to think about, the Holy Spirit wants us to think about who it is that we pray to. And what happens Well, there's deliverance, and he says it. Verse 18, He delivered me from my strong enemy. We face strong enemy. We face people who hate us. They're too strong for just us. But God supports us, doesn't He? Verse 19, He brings us out right into the open, doesn't He? He delivers us. Verse 20, He delivered me. He delivered me. And again, I want to To speak to you for a moment, we don't always feel God's power, do we? Sometimes we doubt His power. We're in a midst of trial in our family, maybe in your personal life with your struggle with sin. Maybe you look at the world and the advance of the church and you wonder how powerful God is. I think about the Christians in Muslim lands. I wonder if they doubt God's power to break through this dominion of Satan. We can do that. We face difficulties. We face strong enemies and we wonder if God is powerful. Take your sin for a moment. You're facing a difficulty and you wonder if he's really all that powerful. But we face spiritual enemies. And oftentimes in the struggle, in the wrestling with sin or with an evangelism, God is in that showing himself to be a mighty God. Our souls, because of our sin, can be likened to hard packed dirt that doesn't grow. Won't grow plants. But in the difficulty, in the affliction, God is like a gardener's hoe that's breaking up our fallow ground. And we don't like it. We don't like it. We don't feel like God's all that powerful. We're going through a difficulty. I'm getting challenged. And I don't feel God's power. But that is in the moment, God is being powerful. He's waking us up. He's bringing us to our knees. And that's victory, that's victory. That's spiritual power to bring us to repentance and faith. God is powerful and we do faith, whether it be our sin or whether it be an unbelieving world. We have reasons to hope in God to call upon him to save us. One of the things that I think about when I see verses 8 through 20, it's hard to describe the power of God. So he uses poetic language. But this should encourage us. It should cause us to have hope. I want you to think about whether or not you hope in God. Do you really think God is powerful? Do you think God is powerful? One of my favorite movies is a movie called Hoosiers. It's a movie about a small country high school basketball team that goes from being kind of no good to go into the state championship in Indiana in the 50s. And of course they win. I hate to ruin it for you. And they really, they don't belong there. They're just kind of a simple, they got a decent coach, they're disciplined, they work hard. But they have one player who's really good. His name is Jimmy. And again, not to ruin it for you, but they win the state championship game. Jimmy does what he does. He hits the game winning shot. They win 42 to 40 at the buzzer. The reason why I bring this up is because of the idea of hope. Because just before that happens, there's a really interesting scene about hope. You're facing enemies. You need a deliverer. You need a victor. You need to have victory. Where's your hope? Well, in this scene, they huddle up. There's 17 seconds left. It's 40 to 40. It's their ball. And their coach says, listen, everyone's going to expect Jimmy to get the ball. So Jimmy, you're going to be a decoy. Billy, you're going to get the ball. You're going to shoot the game-winning shot, Billy. And as soon as he says that, the camera turns to the players. And they're dejected. They're upset. They all want Jimmy to have it. Jimmy's the one that's gotten him here. He's the one that's always hit that shot. He's a clutch player. Their hope, their confidence is in Him. Jimmy needs the ball. My point in saying all that is we have someone far more reliable than Jimmy. We have God. And we have a need for a victory, don't we? And where's our hope? God is powerful. He's powerful. More powerful than any of the enemies we'll ever face. And our hope, when we see these verses, we should draw encouragement. We have someone far more reliable than Jimmy. We have God on our side. And when we pray, what happens? Then the earth shook. We have all the power of God at our arsenal, at our help. Psalm 147.5, great is our Lord and mighty, mighty in power. Why should you seek help? Why should you seek deliverance for your difficulty that you're facing now, the enemies that you're facing? Why should you seek help from God? Because He's powerful. He's powerful. There's another reason And it takes us through the end of our passage this evening, verses 21 through 28. And it may not be completely intuitive why this is a reason why you should seek deliverance from God. My third point is that God, He's not just a God who hears prayer. He's not just a powerful God, but He's a righteous God. Why should you seek deliverance from God? Because God is righteous. And I'm gonna explain what I mean from that. Verses 21 through 25 give commentators difficulty. And they really, I guess in some sense, not to sound arrogant, but they really shouldn't. Gordon Keddy writes about this passage of scripture, this whole song, not just these verses here in verse 21 through 25. Gordon Keddy is one of our ministers, of course, retired ministers in our denomination. He says, such songs, referring to Psalm 18, this chapter here, Such songs are fully messianic and that they are ultimately intelligible only in reference to Christ. Christ is their true meaning. Christ has always been their true meaning. 2 Samuel 22 is a song about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to develop this a little bit. It's important that we understand the scripture correctly. Then I'm going to bring it full circle tonight to my message. These are the words of Christ. Now there's times when we sing the Psalms and we're... Christ is in the Psalms indirectly. The Lord is my shepherd, Psalm 23. Those aren't the Lord's words, we're singing about Jesus. These are actually Jesus's words. That's not uncommon, that's not weird. If we go to Acts chapter 2, and I encourage you to do that if you'd like. Acts chapter 2, verse 22, Peter's speaking to the men of Israel. He's talking about Jesus, and in order to support his argument, in verse 25, he quotes Psalm 16. Now, Psalm 16, if you recall, is a psalm where David writes, the Lord will not let his holy ones see corruption. Talking about the process a body goes through when it dies and decays. And he says in verse 29, after quoting Psalm 16, he says, "...men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. There being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." If we understand Psalm 16 rightly, we understand it to be the words of Christ. Christ is the Holy One. David can't say, you will not let your Holy One see corruption for Himself because His body died. So it's not a novelty to say that Psalm 18 is about Christ, but I want you to know this because it's important about what I'm going to say. If we go to Verse three, we'll notice that it says, the God of my salvation whom I will trust. That's quoted in the New Testament. Hebrews 2.13. And the author of Hebrews, I'll begin in verse 10 of that chapter. Hebrews 2.10. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to you." He quotes from Psalm 22. Okay, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Who said those words? Verse 13, and again, I will put my trust in him. He's quoting this psalm. He's quoting this chapter, saying that Christ is saying, I will put my trust in him. How does the New Testament interpret the Old Testament? In this case, in this psalm, it's very messianic. It's also quoted again in verse 50, and I'll come to that next week. Verse 50 is quoted in Romans 15, 9, and I'll Get into that more next week, but we should see from how Paul uses it in Romans 15 9 that that's actually Christ speaking. And so this helps us, this kind of changes things a little bit at least. I mean we go through the psalm and we realize that Christ, Christ is speaking here. He's the one that's gone through, he's faced death. Verses 5 and 6. Did Christ not face death? Can He not cry out to His God, speaking for us as our representative, as our mediator, as a human, in our flesh? Can He not call God, His God? Did the earth not shake, as it were? Did God's power, was it not demonstrated in the resurrection? And when we get to verses 21 through 25, now it makes sense, doesn't it? Now it makes sense, doesn't it? Now I'm gonna come to verse 21 and 25 in a moment. But verse 26 and verse 28, Tell us that God is a just judge. He's not partial. With the merciful, I'll show myself to be merciful. You will show yourself to be merciful. With the blameless man, blameless. With the pure, pure. With the devious, shrewd. God is just. He gives people what they deserve. There is no partiality with God, Paul says in Romans. We need to be righteous. And in Christ, we are righteous. And I'm bringing full circle here in a moment, but verse 21 through 25, now we can make sense of this. It's not scary that God is righteous because we're righteous. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness. Who can say that? Who can say that? I don't believe this is hyperbolic language. It's very, very pointed. Notice verse 23, for all his judgments. For all his judgments. Who can say that but Christ? Verse 24, I was blameless. Not just before men like Abraham and Noah. The Bible uses that language. I was blameless before him. The second part of verse 24, I kept myself from my iniquity. This is in reference to sin as if Christ sinned. He's just simply saying I've kept myself from iniquity. That's what he's saying. Look at verse 24. The Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness. Not in everyone else's eyes, but in His eyes. In God's eyes. And what the scriptures teach, it teaches this, is that you Because you're born in this world, just like I'm born in this world, a sinner. One of your enemies, and this is where I want to come full circle here. One of our enemies we can say is the judgment of God. It's the righteousness of God. God's righteous. We face judgment. We face our guilt because of our sin. And we need to be righteous. And the Bible says that part of the gospel is that God is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That's the gospel. And we can have Christ's righteousness. We can take these words, even though it's Christ's words and it's fulfilled in Christ, we can take these words and in Christ they have relevance to us. As those who are in Christ, they have relevance to us. Especially these words. We can say, Lord, reward me according to my righteousness." What is your righteousness? If you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ you are righteous. 2 Corinthians 5.21 He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Because the Lord is righteous He will save us because we are righteous in Christ. This is why we seek deliverance from God. Because he will give us what we deserve. And we deserve his salvation. Because Christ has earned that for us. I sought deliverance, not from a dentist, because of my earache. I didn't go to one of my elders and say, hey, you know, can you help me out? No offense, but my elders couldn't help out my earache. I had to go to a doctor. He could help me. and you need to go to Jesus. He can help you. He can help you with all of your enemies, especially the enemy of guilt, of shame, and of sin, because He's righteous. Have you gone to Him? Are you trusting in Him? Can you say, the Lord, can you say in Christ, the Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness? Why should you seek God for deliverance? Because in Christ you're righteous and God is just when He judges. And He will give to you salvation. My message to you tonight is that God powerfully and righteously delivers those who cry out to Him. Are you crying out to God? Are you seeking Him? He hears you and He's powerful to save. This is why you should. We have hope. We have hope. Our hope is in God. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you tonight as your people, thankful for your word, thankful for the fact that you are a deliverer and that you are a savior. that you through your son and by his spirit deliver us from all of our enemies. We pray tonight that you would increase our faith, you would increase our hope, and all the different enemies that we face here tonight, that you would strengthen us and be to us as you were to David. We pray this in the name of Christ our savior, amen.