In the name of your precious name, amen. Psalm 18 this evening. We're at the 18th Psalm. And we welcome you in our savior's name and thank you for joining with us. Now we're not going to read the entirety of the Psalm together. There are 50 verses. You can do that whenever you go home this evening. There's something for you to do. But we'll read the opening six verses only of Psalm 18. And let's read it together. The psalmist, he says, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about. The snares of death prevented me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him. even into his ears. Amen, and as I said, we'll conclude at the end of the verse number six. When ranking the Psalms according to their length, Psalm 18 comes fourth in the packing order. Only three other Psalms are longer than this particular Psalm. Psalms 87 or 88, Psalm 89, sorry, 78, 89, and obviously Psalm 119. The psalm informs us as to its author and to the occasion of its writing. Notice there to the chief musician a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord who speak on to the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul and he said, I will love thee, O Lord. David was about to be enthroned as Israel's king. He was keen and waiting. And yet, note how he describes himself in the title of the psalm. He sees himself no more than the servant of the Lord. That's all he classifies himself. That's all how he describes himself. You see, David counted it a higher honor to be the Lord's servant than to be Israel's king. And so he saw himself just as the servant of the Lord. Having been delivered from the hand of all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul, David comes to express then his gratitude to God within this particular psalm. He rehearses what he has come to learn about his God during this very difficult period in his life. that God had now brought him through. I believe there is a lesson for us to learn here, brethren and sisters, whenever we pass through trying times, and we will pass through many trying times in our lives, but in those times, we have to really ask the question, have we learned anything about our God? Someone once said that in our difficulties we shouldn't ask the question why, but rather we should ask the question what. What is it about myself, and more importantly, what is it about my God that I have come to learn during this time of testing in my own particular life? Whatever David came to learn about his God in the day of testing resulted in this. He loved the Lord more. He loved his Lord more. He loved his God more. After the time of trial, and after the time of difficulty, look how he opens the psalm, I will love thee, O Lord. Because as David comes to consider all that God had done for him, especially the great deliverance that he had known in his life that he comes to speak of in the title of the psalm, David felt compelled to love the Lord. who had delivered him so wonderfully in his life. I wonder whenever we consider the deliverance that we have experienced, maybe not the experience of David, and yet all of us have known a great deliverance in our lives, are we not compelled to love the Lord? We think of our deliverance from sin, that's the deliverance I'm speaking of, redeemed from the hand of the strong enemy, delivered from sin, saved from hell and from the judgment, all of which should cause our hearts to love our Lord and our God more and more. Too often our love for God is not what it ought to be, but brethren and sisters, if we would only but recall to our minds our deliverances, then I believe that the embers of our love would be inflamed once again. We consider what God has done for us, his deliverances, his salvation, then I believe that our hearts be inflamed with love again. Now to your relief, we're not going to look at the entire psalm this evening, but instead I want to focus really what David came to learn about his God as a result of the difficulties that he passed through, the most of which are found in the opening couple of verses off the psalm. And you'll find that they all begin with the word my, my. Maybe come to learn the same in our lives. In the day of testing, David came to prove that God was his strength. In the day of testing, David came to learn that God was his strength. Verse number one, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. David affirms the truth again that God was his strength there in the verse number two. The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer, my God. My strength. It's noteworthy that although these two words appear the same in our English translation of the scripture, they are not the same two Hebrew words. The first word, the first strength in verse number one means help. Oh Lord, my helper, the one who comes to my aid. The second strength speaks about a craggy cliff or an immovable rock David doesn't say here that in God I find my strength, though that would have been true. Rather, the psalmist says that God is his strength. It isn't that he derives strength from God, but that God is strength for the psalmist. Here's the comfort for every child of God. Our strength is in God. Or rather, our God is our strength. David places not his confidence in the strength of his fellow creature, but in the strength of his God. No doubt, no doubt whatsoever that the Christian pilgrim has many a fainting fit on the King's highway, but in God there's strength for the pathway that God has purposed for all of us to walk. And there's no doubt that the Christian soldier has many episodes of weakness on the battlefield, but in God there's strength for the conflict that infuses fresh courage for the fight. And there's no doubt that the Christian worker becomes tired and becomes weary in their service, but in God there's strength for the task that God has entrusted to his servants as they labor for God in his harvest field. James Smith remarked, If God is your strength, then it will be sufficient for the most trying times. Who can tell what is before us? He said we may have heavy losses, painful crosses, distresses, bereavements, or may even be called to die. But what if this should be the case? If God is our strength, we shall find his grace sufficient for us, and his strength made perfect in our weakness. And then he concluded his remark in this way. Let us not think too much of the trials of the way, but rather let us rejoice that the omnipotent God is our strength. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help Maybe tonight your strength is almost gone. Then wait upon your God. Look to him in prayer, Psalm 138 in the verse number three. In the day when I cry, thou answerest me and strengthenest me with strength in my soul. The psalmist cried, in the day of trouble, God imparted strength into his soul. You see, the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, has promised to give power to them that faint, and to them that hath no might, we're told he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, or exchange their strength, They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40 verses 29 through to 31. When we sense that our strength is gone, then we find that his strength is so often made perfect in our weakness. And so let's not look to our weakness, but rather let us lean on his omnipotence. Beloved, however weak you may feel in yourself, however rough the road you are traveling presently, however heavy the burden you're carrying, God has promised that he will supply you with sufficient strength for each and every day. As thy days, so shall thy strength be. He's my strength. In the day of trouble, I found it to be so. In the time of testing, I found that my God was my strength. Not only that, but in the day of testing, David came to prove that God was his stay. For David speaks of God in the verse number two as God being his rock. Now you can trace that phrase, my rock, throughout the book of Psalms and you'll find that That phrase is repeated nine times by the Psalmist David. It's one of David's favorite ways about speaking about his God. He's my rock, he's my rock. There are times when we would employ this phrase ourselves. We speak about someone that is reliable, someone who has been a reliable help and has stayed to us during testing times. We would say sometimes about our husbands or wife, husband or wife, singular or maybe a friend, we would say, we would speak to or refer to them as being a rock to us. You hear people say, you know, they're my rock. They're my rock. When a person says that, they're really saying that the person is someone that they can depend upon and that will always support that individual. Whenever Hannah came to express her gratitude to God in prayer, She would say in 1 Samuel 2, verse number two, neither is there any rock like our God. Neither is there any rock like our God. Hannah came to trust, to lean upon, to confide and find safety in God the rock. Compared to the rocks that the worldling places their confidence in, they place their confidence in the rock of their riches, or the rock of their friends, or the rock of fame or possessions. But compared to those rocks, they're all shamrocks. We're standing on the solid rock, the rock Christ Jesus. There's no rock like our God. There's no rock so great, no rock so ancient, no rock so durable, no rock so steadfast, no rock so enduring as God our rock. Christ is the rock of his people. We stand on the rock like David did there in Psalm 27 and the verse five, for in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock. Or over there in Psalm 40 verse 2, He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the married clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my going. We stand on the rock like David, aye, and we hide in the cleft of the rock like Moses. Exodus 33, 22, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in the cleft of the rock. and it will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. Rock of ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee with heaven in the cleft of the rock, the riven rock. We hide in the cleft of the rock like Moses. We stand in the rock like David. Aye, and we draw sustenance from the rock like the children of Israel did. Numbers 20 verse 11, and Moses lifted up his hand with his rod. He smoked the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and the beasts also. Sufficient abundance supply in Christ the rock. Now David had seen plenty of rocks in his life. You think about him. He speaks of himself being hunted like a partridge over mountains and down deal. He saw many a rock, he hid in the cave of Adullam on one occasion. He saw plenty of rocks in his life, but there was no rock like God. No rock like God, at least in David's estimation. God is the rock of his people, some upon which we can stand upon. Every child of God, your heart is overwhelmed tonight. Overwhelmed maybe with fears, anxiety, maybe with stress, maybe with disappointment, maybe with trouble. Then breathe out in prayer the words of Psalm 61 verses 1 and 2. Hear my cry, O God. Attend on to my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry on to thee. When my heart is overwhelmed, then lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Henry Law wrote, we have a rock, and when standing upon it impregnable is our position and glorious is our prospect, that rock is Christ. And so the rock was David's stay, God was his stay. In the day of testing, David came to prove that God was in the third place, his stronghold. David uses the word fortress here. He's my fortress, the Lord Jehovah is my fortress. But the word stronghold or the word castle could be justly used instead. A fortress, as you know, is a place of defense, a place so strengthened that the enemy cannot enter. The psalmist here pictures God as his fortress. He's emphasizing to us, as he does so, that in God he finds safety and security. God encircles me. God enfolds me. God envelops me. God surrounds me. God is keeping me. God is defending me. That is what David has learnt about his God. What fortifications are to a city and its inhabitants is what God is to his people. God is round about his people as the mountains are about Jerusalem. So God is around about us. Those words of Peter. Familiar to us, 1 Peter 1 verse 5, we're told there that we are kept, we are garrisoned by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. The world and the flesh and the devil will try to invade us and try to overthrow us, but God is our fortress. Brethren, sisters, our position is unassailable, unassailable. God is our fortress. One preacher put it like this, no moat, no portcullis, draw a bridge, wall and battlement could make us so secure as we are when the attributes of the Lord of hosts environ us around. God is encircling us. He is our fortress. Fortress into which we can run and hide the name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous runneth into it and they are safe Safe in him. That's where we are today and so David found out in the day of trial he proved that God was his Stronghold or his fortress in the day of testing David came to learn a fourth thing He came to learn and to prove that God was his savior. David testifies in verse two that God was his deliverer. My deliverer, he said. In our day of testing, we often look to this person or maybe that organization to deliver us. Well, all the time, God is the one who ultimately delivers his people. not wanting to take the credit himself or to attribute his deliverance to anyone or anything else. David comes now here to acknowledge that God's hand was in his deliverance. God is my deliverer. It was God who did it. As David came to realize this, David had already in his past a catalog A catalog of times when God had already delivered him. He had already proven this in his life. Do you remember him as a young boy, shepherd boy, there in Bethlehem, looking after his father's goose sheep? And the lion and the bear came, and how God delivered him from the paw of the lion. That was his testimony. And from the mouth of the lion, whenever he went in before Saul, He had already proven God to be his deliverer in the past. And then whenever he went out to meet Goliath the foe, that great giant from Gath, the champion of the Philistines, God had delivered him again. This is all in the past. And then there was a time whenever he found himself in the royal palace and King Saul, out of envy and jealousy, he throws a javelin towards David on a number of occasions. And each of the times David is able to escape, David is delivered. And now we find him on the basis of past deliverances, he now is able to say once again, God has delivered me again from Saul and from David. The hand of all of my enemies. You see, brethren and sisters, God is constantly delivering his people. He delivers us from our enemies. He delivers us from ourselves. He delivers us from Satan's schemes. He delivers us from falling. Having delivered us from our greatest danger, sin. God not deliver us from every other danger, that we'll come to face in this life, I believe He will. And whenever God does bring deliverance, may we not forget to return and to give Him thanks. How perplexing to see God delivering people from sickness and trouble and difficulties, and yet they never come to a place of prayer, to thank God. Raised from sickness, raised from trouble or delivered from trouble and perplexity in their lives and yet they never come to publicly express to God their thanks for such deliverance. Whenever the children of Israel were delivered and they had crossed over the Red Sea and they saw their enemies drowned in those same waters, that company of people, they didn't just drive on and push on towards the promised land. What did they do? They stopped. and they praise God, and they acknowledge God's deliverance publicly in song. They praise God for the deliverance that they had just experienced, and we ought to do the same. Did you ever thank God for raising you up from that sick bed, brother or sister? Did you ever do it? Because it was God that brought the healing. You thanked your doctor, and maybe the nurses, and you maybe even went and bought them a wee box of Heroes or Quality Street to thank them, but did you ever come and thank God? Did you ever express your gratitude to God for unraveling the mess that you found yourself in? Did you ever stop and just praise God for God providentially overruling in some circumstance? Let's not forget to praise our God when he brings the deliverances when they come. This is what David does. He says, he's my deliverer. My deliverance came from God, not from my prowess. not from my military skill, not from my wisdom, or from the men who came and rallied to my side. It was God. God brought the deliverance. He's my deliverer. He's my deliverer. He's my savior. In the day of testing, David came to prove that God fifthly was his sovereign. David refers to God as my God. He's my God. Now, no doubt, God was the God of Abraham. And he was the God of Isaac, and he was the God of Jacob. But he was also David's God. David, he speaks here of a personal relationship with the Almighty. He's my sovereign, he's my God. He's come to know God on a personal level. And folks, he's our God as well. He's our God. Psalm 48 verse 14. For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even on to death. He's our God to trust. And he's our God to obey. And he's our God to follow. And he's our God to serve. He's our God. He's our king. He's our sovereign. And David came to say, he's my God. He's not only the God of my forefathers, but he's now my God. I have trusted in him. I have believed in him. To the saving of my soul, he's my God. In the day of testing, David came to prove, number six, that God was his shield, a buckler. That's how it's described here, my buckler. What's a buckler? Well, the buckler was the small shield that was employed by a soldier to deflect whatever arsenal the enemy had directed at him. Those little shields, those small shields, were usually made of tough and thick animal hides. They would be fastened to a rim and then attached to the left arm so that whenever the arrows would have came in the direction of the one soldier, that shield, that buckler, would be thrown out in front of the body in order to ward off the attack, protecting the vital parts of the body like the head and like the heart and also the internal organs lower down. God is the shield and protector of his people. He stands between us and the enemy to deflect and to disable those weapons that would otherwise destroy us. Such weapons will never prosper. the weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Such weapons will never prosper when God is the buckler of his people. For your own prophet, take down a Bible concordance and trace through the scriptures how many times in the scriptures God is depicted as the shield of his people. Genesis 15 verse one, does Abraham not say that the Lord was his shield? Deuteronomy 33, 29, 2 Samuel 22, verse 3, Psalm 28, 7, Psalm 33, 20, Psalm 84, 11, Psalm 119, verse 114, Psalm 144, verse 2, Proverbs 30, and the verse 5 are just a few examples whereby we see that God is the shield of his people. Between us and the foe is this line of defense. God is my shield, he goes before me. He goes to protect me. In the day of testing, David came to prove, number seven, that God was his salvation. The horn of my salvation is how David speaks of his God as he ends the verse near the end of verse number two. The metaphor is taken from horned beasts. that would have employed their horns to push through and to overcome all that stood in their way. The horn is the symbol of strength and symbol of power. Speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, Zacharias, John the Baptist's father, he said this in Luke chapter one, verse 69, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he had visited and redeemed his people and had raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David. Speaking of Christ, the horn of salvation, the power, the strength of salvation. David found that so to be in his life. In the day of testing, David came in the last place to prove that God was his safe place. I had to get an S and that was it. Couldn't do any better than that. He refers to his God at the end of the verse too as my high tower, my high tower. The high tower would have been positioned in what its builders believe was the most inaccessible place that they could find in the nation. Those who came to then seek refuge in the high tower were placed beyond the reach of the enemy. The tower would offer rest and security and provision for all that went and ran to the high tower. Christ is our high tower, and having sought refuge in him, thank God, brethren and sisters, we are placed beyond the reach of the enemy. We're in his hand, and being in his hand, we're then in the Father's hand as well. No safer place can the Christian be tonight in Christ, the Christian's high tower. He's my high tower, he's my safe place, and into him I run. I run from mine enemies, I run from my fears, I run and hide myself in him. Now all of these word pictures employed by the Psalmist David are set forth, I believe, to convey one truth to the readership, and this is the truth. There is fullness of safety to be found in Jehovah. They're all, we would say, places of defense. He's my strength, he's my help, he's my rock, he's my fortress, my deliverer, my strength, my trust, my buckler, the horn of my salvation, my high tower. multiple ways to deliver his people from their enemies and to secure them from danger. At times, he can be our fortress. And at other times, he's our rock. And then at other times, he's our high tower. Whatever we need him to be, that's what he is to his people. At times, we find ourselves in times when the enemy is against us, the hand of our enemies are against us, the hand of our souls, they are against us. But in our God we find all that we need. In whatever guise his help comes to us, it is for us to trust in God, who is our strength, who is our rock, who is our fortress, deliverer, God, buckler, horn of salvation and high tower. Is it no wonder then that David said in verse six, finding this all about his God and coming to to become acquainted with this and to become aware of this as he found himself in the day of difficulty. Is it any wonder that then David says in my distress I called upon the Lord because he has all these things to me and I cried on to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Oh, brethren, sisters, may that be our experience tonight. As we call upon the Lord, may our cry enter into his ear, and may God be pleased to answer our prayers and our petitions in the days that lie ahead. May the Lord encourage our hearts as we have come to consider all that our God is to us, his beloved people. For Christ's sake, amen.