This morning, let's go to Psalm 18. I had asked Scott to do that last hymn just because it goes so well with Psalm 18. Just by way of remembrance as you're turning there, do remember that Psalms is 150 individual Psalms. It's not 150 chapters within a book. And each psalm is a song. The Jews actually sung them and still sing many of them to this day. Psalms is essentially the Jewish hymn book even though we know that it was written under the inspiration of God. It is the word of God. It was breathed out by God. And we've seen that Psalms is divided into five different scrolls or five different books. Book one is Psalm 1 through 41. And the theme as we have seen so very clearly by now is human suffering and the need for divine deliverance. And almost every psalm to this point, not every one, but almost every one, the title has been, each sermon has been something along the lines of, Oh Lord, deliver me from this. And, Oh Lord, deliver me from that. And we see it in the text of these psalms that have been written by David through the Holy Spirit. Psalm 18. is similar but different, and what I mean by that is you won't see David asking for deliverance in this psalm, which by the way is by far the longest psalm we've seen so far, 50 verses, which is very long, especially for the first book of the psalms. We're going to be here for a few weeks. But it's really Psalm 18 is known as a royal psalm, but it's also a psalm of thanksgiving. And what makes it different from the other psalms we've seen to this point is that David isn't really asking for deliverance in this psalm, but he's praising God for all the things that He has delivered him from. Well, it's good sometimes just to stop and think about what the Lord has brought you through. And when reading the introduction to this psalm, It almost seems as if David is referring to a specific event. It's a long psalm, but it's a long introduction to the psalm. Let's read the introduction before we get started. of Psalm 18, he says, to the chief musician, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this psalm in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said, and so it looks like it's related to a specific event, and some of the psalms are, but this one really is not. The important thing to remember about this psalm is not the specific event, but the specific time that it's related to. A lot of the psalms, we really don't have a great insight as to when it was written. That is not true for Psalm 18. We know the part of his life that it was written from David here. And this is not referring to a specific event, the better way to look at this, the key phrase in the introduction is the fact that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies. The day he is speaking of is the course of his life. And another reason we know that David was really reflecting on his life is because Psalm 18 is almost an exact copy of 2 Samuel chapter 22. And in fact, if you were to go back to read 2 Samuel 22, we know for a fact that it was written in the closing years, possibly even the closing days of David's life. He is an old man by the time he writes 2 Samuel 22, which is also almost a photocopy of Psalm 18. Second, Samuel 22's account is 51 verses long. Psalm 18 is 50 verses long. It's almost identical. And so this was written at the end of David's life. He is reflecting back on his life. He is looking back at all God has done for him and all that God has brought him through. And so the reason for this You know, David is giving a synopsis of God's deliverance throughout the course of his life. But get this, we have to focus on this. David got to the end of his life and he came to the clear conclusion that God is faithful. I love that. This is not coming from a man who doesn't know better. He's not saying this on credit. He is saying this as an old man coming to the end of his life looking backwards. And time, you know, has such a way of giving us perspective, doesn't it? You know, as a young person, it seems like you're always looking ahead and saying every new trial you come to, you know, you don't really have any experience as a younger person, do you? Not that I know anything about that. I'm kind of getting to the other category here. I turned 40 in November and I don't think I could claim the young person status anymore. But as a younger person, typically you don't have any life experience. And every new trial that comes your way, every new storm, every new trouble, you may not have any experience in that area. We always experience something for the first time, don't we? As a younger person, we get in these situations and we're thinking, Lord, how are you ever going to get me through this? And then we see the Lord bring us through it, and we mark that up to experience. And next time we come to something similar, at least we should say, you know what? I've already been through this, or I've already been through worse. The Lord's already brought me through that. He's going to get me through this as well. But as you kind of get to that middle-age stage, you know, I think we kind of have a habit of being double-minded. At least I do. I may look back and say, Lord, I know you brought me through that, but Lord, can you bring me through this? So we kind of go back and forth. David's at the end looking back at the whole thing, and he came to the conclusion that God has always been faithful. Timah has a way of giving us that perspective. The way that we have to get this to, I know this is going to be a fairly long introduction because this psalm has so much backstory that we really have to get to grasp the weight of what's being said. But I love the way that David closes this out in the very last verse, verse 50. He said, Great deliverance giveth he to his king and showeth mercy to his anointed, to David and to his seed forevermore. I'll tell you why this is so important. Because this is a reference to the Davidic covenant. This is a reference to Christ himself. When he says that he gives great deliverance to his king, and showeth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed forevermore, that is an absolute picture of Christ there. We know that Jesus was a descendant of David. He was a son of David. And in fact, I've got to talk about the Davidic covenant for a minute, so you can understand, because we're going to be reading all through Psalm 18 about the deliverance of His King. But that's not just limited to David. There was a greater David that came along. His name is Jesus Christ, and in fact, we know that in the Gospel of Matthew, and in the Gospel of Luke, we have two different genealogies of Jesus. The one in Matthew is the line of Joseph. The one in Luke is the line of Mary. And both of those genealogies make it a point to connect Christ as being in the line of David. The reason they included Joseph is because he was a son of David by adoption. We know that Jesus was born of a virgin. Well, they did it through the line of Mary to show that he was a son of David through birth. They wanted the whole world and everybody from here on out that reads those genealogies to know that Jesus was descended from David, both by adoption and by birth. And here's another amazing thing. When Titus and the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in AD 70, they also destroyed all of those genealogical records. So do you know the only messianic genealogical records that we have in existence? The ones that point to Jesus as being Messiah. You think that was a mistake? It's almost like God is sovereign or something. The only two messianic genealogies we have is the ones in Matthew and Luke. That's the only ones he wanted to survive because they point to him. He's the only one that could have been Messiah. And so, but here's the Davidic covenant in a nutshell. I'm not going to get too deep in this, but I want you to understand what that is. So, in 2 Samuel chapter 7 is the most detailed account of the Davidic covenant. But the prophet Nathan goes to David, and he said that through your son, The Lord is going to raise up a temple unto himself, and his throne will be an everlasting throne, and his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. So the two major promises in the Davidic covenant is that a son of David would raise up a temple unto God, and that his kingdom would be an everlasting kingdom. That's the two major promises. Well, as with so many biblical prophecies, there was a near and far fulfillment to that. In the immediate context, Solomon, the son of David, built the temple unto God. But we know that he could not have been an ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy because Solomon's kingdom was not an everlasting kingdom. His throne was not an everlasting throne, and in fact, even as glorious as the temple of Solomon was, and it was glorious, it didn't last either. That temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 B.C. I mean, they burned it. They destroyed it. So, certainly we could say Solomon couldn't have been a fulfillment of that prophecy, but here comes a greater son of David. A greater Solomon, if you will. who comes on the scene, the God-man, born of a virgin. And man, I love this so much. I've really been studying a lot because I'm writing a lot about this particular subject. How Jesus Christ, and we've seen this in John, on our study through John, about this replacement thing, have we not? That Jesus was doing a new thing. And one of those new things that Jesus did is He replaced the temple, the second Jewish temple, the Herod's temple as it's called, the one that was destroyed in A.D. 70. Whenever Jesus came along in John chapter 2, we talked about this in our last John study just because that's where we're at, that's what we're dealing with. But Jesus said to the Jews, He said, destroy this temple, and He said this at the temple. He said, destroy this temple, and I'll raise it again in three days. But He was talking about the temple of His body. In other words, what He's saying is, this temple is not the important one. This temple is dead as a hammer. You know, He had just got through driving out the money changers. Cleansing the temple. This is the temple you need to be worried about. Talking about the temple of His body. And when He rose from the dead, His body resurrecting from the grave, that was the temple that would be raised up unto God. And His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His throne is an everlasting throne. So He is a fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. God delivered His King. Not just David, but the greater David. Isn't that a great truth? I was teaching the Sunday school class this morning. We're just going through the whole Bible right now. It's basically a theme or a survey of the Old and New Testament. And I'm just going through the Bible from a 30,000 foot viewpoint and I'm giving them the major themes of Scripture all the way through. And we're talking about in Genesis 2, we're talking about the God of our Sabbath. and how that God in creation, He worked six days. He created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. Not that He was tired, not that He needed to rest, but He was giving us an example of a greater work that He would do. And then Jesus comes along, we find in the book of Hebrews chapter 4, that when He completed the work of salvation, when He completed the work of redemption, He rested from His labor and He sat down at the right hand of God. And we can find our rest in Him. We don't have to worry about, have we done enough? Have we done enough ordinances? Have we done enough covenants? Have we done enough good things? Have we done this? Have we done that? Salvation is in the finished work of Jesus Christ and in Him alone. He is our Sabbath. I could keep going. He's the greater temple. He's the greater Sabbath. He's the greater sacrifice. He's the greater covenant. It's the whole point of the book of Hebrews. But we see this in the Davidic covenant and God keeps his promises. And God delivered his king. I love this. Y'all, I hadn't even read the text yet. Y'all gonna have to listen faster. With all that backstory in the backdrop, let's read the first six verses of Psalm 18. He says, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, and whom I will trust, my buckler, that means my shield, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. The sorrows of death come past me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell come past 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love You. We worship You. God, just so thankful for salvation in Jesus Christ, the finished work of His death, the burial and resurrection that you are satisfied with that sacrifice. And Lord, by grace through faith you impute His righteousness to us, God, that we could stand before you holy based on the merits of Christ. Lord, I pray that you would just fill me with your Holy Spirit this morning into me a sin and self. We ask that you would just bless the preaching of your word and that it would go forth with power and clarity. And we'll thank you and praise you for it. May Christ be magnified. And in His name we pray these things. Amen. So I want to preach on this thought. The God of all faithfulness. The God of all faithfulness. God is faithful to His promises and He's faithful to His people. And we find this certainly in the life of David as an elderly man. And he looks back on his life and he sees what God has done for him. And he writes it down, this hymn of praise and thanksgiving. But what ways did he find the Lord to be faithful? Just a few things this morning, I certainly won't scratch the surface. I probably will actually only preach through the first three verses. But I do want to read just before we really tackle verse 1 and 2. I want you to look at verse four. Just the kind of mood that David is looking at, the things that God has brought him through. The sorrows of death compassed me. The floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell, that's Sheol, that's talking about death itself. He wasn't afraid of going to hell, certainly. Compassed me about the snares of death preventing me, there it is. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God and he heard my voice out of his temple And my cry came before him, even into his ears." Now, we know that during David's life, the temple wasn't built. Sometimes the term temple is just a generic phrase that's used for where God dwells, his dwelling place. This wasn't the actual physical temple. It didn't exist yet. But you see, he's looking back on his life and he's talking about some of the horrible trials he's been through. And he already gives us the conclusion that he comes to before he even mentions the trials. And we find this in verses 1 and 2. And so, in what ways did David find the Lord to be faithful to him? Well, number one, he's faithful in his strength, which he says is my strength. I love that. God makes his strength our strength. In fact, in my Bible, I have underlined every time the word my is used in these two verses. I love how personal this is to David. He's a big God, but he's a personal God. And so, number one, his strength, that he makes our strength. It says, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. And so the phrase, I will love thee, O Lord, that means that I do love you and that I will love you forever. It's not like David is saying, okay, God, you know, from this day forward, I'm gonna love you. No, he's saying, I love you and I will always love you. It's a very strong, intimate love, very strong Hebrew word here for love. And then David goes on to say why. He gives a list. Everything we're gonna see in this list in verse two pertains to this love that he has for God. He tells you why. It's almost like a love letter to God. He's saying all the things that he loves about God. I love you because, and then the first one in this list is his strength. In fact, here he says it twice. Just in case you missed it, verse 1, he says it again in verse 2. Now, the word strength, if you think about it, the word strength means the power or the ability to do something. You know, if you think about it in terms of lifting weights, if somebody can bench press 300 pounds, That means they have the strength or the ability to lift that weight. That's what strength is. It's the ability or the power to do something. And here it says that the Lord is our strength. He's my strength. And this is really an amazing statement coming from a man who had slayed lions, he slayed bears, he slayed the giant Goliath, he survived the wrath of an angry King Saul who was head taller than anybody in the kingdom it said. And of course we know the story about how Saul tried to impale David with a spear and the spear stuck in the wall. I don't think I would have hung around very long for that. He led armies in battle. You know, this was a man who could have easily beaten his chest and say, look what I have done. But David had no such thought. There was nothing like that in the heart of David. He said, no, look at what God did. He's my strength. He's the one that gives the ability to do these things. He got to the end of his life and said, the Lord did it all. He is my strength. And here's what we have to get. God is the source of every bit of strength that we have. We couldn't lift a pinky finger without His grace to do so. You know, we don't even have power in the day of death. It kills me when I hear people talking about their life as if they are the keeper of their own destiny. Often, if I have an opportunity, I ask them, I say, Who's keeping that heart in your chest beating right now? Are you doing that? Friend, we wouldn't take one breath without the grace of God. Who gets you up in the morning? Who keeps you safe so you can make it to the bed at night? God's in control. He's sovereign over all that. There's nothing that we have, no good thing that we have that wasn't given to us by God. Whether it's physical abilities, mental toughness, emotional endurance, even down to our very motivation for living and working, every bit of it comes from God. And so you say, well, if God is my strength, then why do I feel so weak? Well, I love what Spurgeon said. He said, anything that drives me to my knees is good. Anything that makes me trust in the promise and wait only upon God because my expectation is from Him is helpful to my soul, infuses courage, and inspires confidence, and invests her with fresh strength. I think one of the big reasons that God allows us to go through trials and even sends us into trials is because if everything was too easy, we would just be depending on ourselves. I mean, we would just get used to it. We wouldn't see our need of God. We would even subconsciously think that we were doing something. Look at what I'm doing. Everything I touch turns to gold. Everything I'm doing is succeeding. Somebody that believes that is headed for destruction, aren't they? They're headed for a fall. We have to be reminded of how powerful God is and how good God is and how strong and how loving God is. I told the Sunday school class last week, We were talking about a God of life and a God of glory and how both of these things are seen in creation. You know, I ask them, I like to pick their brain. I say, why did God create everything? Was He just lonely? Did He just, and I've heard people say that. He was just lonely. He just, He needed us for fellowship. Really? The triune eternal God? I mean, you know, His name Yahweh means the self-existent one. That means He doesn't depend on anybody or anything. He didn't need us. The Trinity, I mean, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, they didn't need anything. They didn't need anybody. He created everything to show us His glory. To expose His glory. To reveal His glory unto and through His creation. That's why He did it. Psalm 19, in fact, it's right there at the turn of a page. Probably a year or two. Psalm 19 and verse 1, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day utter his speech and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language for their voice is not heard. And so you say, well, that sounds kind of arrogant that the number one reason God created everything is to show forth His glory. Listen, is there anything or anyone more powerful than God? Is there anybody more glorious than God? Is there anything or anybody that God could point us to greater than Himself? He's the only one that can say that. If He points us to anybody else but Himself, it's going to be a downgrade. And so he did that to show forth his glory, even in creation. And so even in our trials, we get to see his glory and how good and powerful he is. This life is not about us, it's about him. And sometimes I feel like when things are going too well, we tend to forget that, we get used to that. You know, it's kind of like a light switch. I've mentioned this illustration before, but I find myself reminded of that every time the power goes out. How many, you don't have to raise your hand. But I need at least a good Baptist nod to let me know I'm the only one that does this. When the power goes out for any amount of time, I find myself going into every room and flipping on a light switch as if it's going to come on. And every time I look at myself and say, you idiot, the power's out. And in five minutes, I'm going to do it again. And 10 minutes later, I'm going to do it again. And it's because it's something that comes so easy that I never even think about it. Never even think about it. And in fact, if that power is off for too long, I'm calling the power company. I don't ever call the power company unless the power goes off. And if we were honest, we would probably never go to God in any serious, meaningful way unless we needed Him. It becomes like a light switch. It's just too easy. We don't think about it. We put our life on cruise control. And I tell you, the best praying, the most intimate, powerful praying that we will ever do is when we're in our trials, right? You know I'm telling the truth. We need the Lord because He's the one that gives us strength. And I will say this, that if we're experiencing feelings of weakness in any area of our life, you know where you need to go? You need to go to the rock, our God, which brings me to my next point here. Number two, not only is He our strength, He's our rock and our fortress. They go together. Look at verse two. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. Now, these two, as I mentioned, they go together, but I want you to think about it in the sense of a mountain fortress. And this really, it also ties into what David says a little later about God being our high tower that goes together as well. A mountain fortress was often where soldiers would go in order to find refuge from the enemy. In fact, one of the most famous ones is Masada. I've actually been to Masada and it's about 1,500 feet above sea level. In fact, Masada is right by the Dead Sea. When you get up on top of Masada, You can see the Dead Sea. And honestly, just about everything that you see or most everything you see would have been what Abraham and Lot saw when they decided to divide up the land. And he wanted to go to the... Lot went to the well-watered plains of Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what you're seeing right there. But it's a flat mesa, about 1,500 feet above sea level. You could take a tram up to the top, or you could walk to the top. And I was crazy, so I opted to walk up the top. And I got a T-shirt later that said, I climbed Masada, but it's kind of a lie. It was more like a crawl. But what's interesting about Masada, it was a mountain fortress where, you know, we just talked about the Maccabean revolt between the Old and New Testament. Some soldiers from a similar later rebellion, that was their fortress. About 900 of them lived up there. And it was just straight up on all sides. And once they actually got up there and kind of made their civilization up there, nobody could get to them. Because, you know, if you're a Roman soldier and you're trying to climb up there, I mean, they're shooting arrows. They're dropping tar on you. They're dropping boulders. You're not getting up there. And if you did, you'd be so tired, you wish you hadn't got up there. And so nobody could touch them. You could go to sleep at night and not have to worry about the enemy sneaking up on you. You were safe up there. Now eventually, the Romans did get to them. But it took them months. The Romans built an earthen ramp to the top. It took them months to do it. But there was no sneak attack. I mean, you're not going to get anybody to sneak up on you. And so, what I love about this picture of this mountain fortress is that you could only get up there if you had an invitation. You had to be granted access. They had to throw you a ladder. Or in the case of supplies, they had these giant baskets they would let down and bring the supplies up, but you couldn't just come without an invitation. Well, Hebrews 4, Verses 14-16 says, Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like us we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We have an open invitation to go to the throne room of our God, our Heavenly Father. Isn't that a great promise? Day and night, 24-7, 365, no matter where you are, you have an invitation to come to God through Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. So we do have an invitation for this fortress to go to the rock of our salvation. We have a secret place that we can access through prayer that the enemy cannot go and they cannot keep us from. Isn't that wonderful? Even in prison, even in persecution, even in sickness, even in suffering, we have an invitation to go to a secret place where the enemy cannot keep us from going. A mountain fortress was a special place because it was so safe from the enemy. that you could rest without keeping one eye open. So if you're feeling restless and anxious, you need to go to the rock, go to God in prayer, and let me say this, and I'll move on. I really think that something that's been lost in our individual Christian lives, and I understand that I don't have deep insight into this because it is a private thing, But just something that I have seen as a pastor over the last 15 years, I think that people generally are really lacking in their serious, quiet time with God. And I'm talking about it is so important to have a private refuge for you to go. This is something we see Jesus doing clearly, don't we? How many times in the New Testament where it says He came apart to pray? He came apart. He went unto a mountain. He had quiet places to go to spend time with God the Father in prayer, and I think it's a great example for us to follow. I like what Vance Habner said. He said, if you don't come apart, then your life is going to fall apart. If you don't come apart, you'll come apart. And I know in our busy rat race of life, sometimes it seems like it's the hardest thing to do, but I'm telling you, I don't know exactly when it happened. I didn't always do this as a Christian. But at some point in time, I got so needy on God. that I realized that I had a quiet place just about everywhere I went. I had a specific place in our house. I had a specific place when we went to visit family. I had a specific place at the church. And sometimes if I was driving, I might just have to pull over or make the car my quiet place. I don't like doing that quite as much, but man, it's a whole lot better than nothing. And so I want to ask you, do you have that quiet place? Do you have that quiet place of refuge? It's been proven scientifically that like, let's say that maybe you work from home and your workplace is the exact same place as your recreational space. It doesn't allow you to de-stress like it normally would. You know, if you're taking calls or maybe dealing with angry customers or trying to get a project done from your recliner, then even when you shut the computer, that doesn't shut off. You're in the same place. We need to have a place designated for intimate personal prayer and time with God. We ought to have that place and that space in our life where that is our purpose is to get alone and be with God. And it's been such a blessing to me in my life. It's an absolute necessity. And so I'm thankful though that we can go to the rock of our salvation. We have that open invitation. We need to keep this in mind. If you're feeling weak, He's the source of our strength. How do we get to Him? Well, we get to Him in prayer. He's our strength. He's our rock. He's our fortress. But lastly this morning, He's our deliverer and He's our God. He put those two together. He says, the Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer, my God, Strength in whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. We'll look at that more next week. But he says, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. Now this word deliver here means an escape. It means a way out. God is our escape. He is our way out. David is saying that God himself is our escape. And this is so important right here. The Lord is our escape even when there is no escape. We have to get this. The Lord is our escape even when there is no escape. Listen, I don't care what all the prosperity peddlers say. There's sometimes in our life that we'll be faced with certain trials that we will not be able to go around. And our only choice will be to go through it. And sometimes we'll face things that we can't escape. And yet David says there is an escape. The Lord is our escape when there is no escape. We can't always get out of our circumstances. But through Christ, we can always enter into the presence of God. And one thing that I've learned through the years is a lot of the time the greatest prayer that I can pray in my trials is not, Lord, get me out of my trials. We pray to get out all the time, don't we? Lord, get me out of this situation. Lord, help me. Lord, deliver me. He's not upset by that. Don't get me wrong. But that's not always the will of God in that moment. So the best prayer is not always, Lord, get me out of my trials, but Lord, would you come into my trial with me? And He'll always do that. He promises that He will. That He'll give grace and peace and wisdom to help in time of need. So do we pray for that? Do we see the Lord as our escape or just the means to our escape? And here's something else we have to get. I'm not trying to be a downer here, I'm just trying to encourage you here. Okay, this is going to throw you maybe, I don't know. But the overwhelming majority of the Christian life is waiting on God and trusting Him. Did you know that? I'd probably say 95% of your Christian life will be spent waiting on God and trusting in Him. And some of the things we're waiting for, that won't even come till eternity. And so, if you have determined in your mind that you're not going to be happy or find any joy until the circumstances change, well, you just be miserable. That's why we have to learn to rest in God. Not in our circumstances, but in the God who is over our circumstances. Because here's the thing, as I said, the overwhelming majority of the Christian life is just trusting and waiting on God, so we need to be good at it. And here's the thing, you know, it often seems like when we do get an answer to prayer, that the answer just, it kind of comes quickly. I mean, when it happens, it happens, right? But the wait for that prayer to be answered can seem like forever. You know, we may wait years for a prayer to get answered, but when it gets answered, it happens in that day. I mean, we'll always talk about that day as being the day the prayer was answered, but were you miserable in all the time leading up to that? Or did you just trust God by faith that He was going to work it out in His way and in His time? Because we rob ourselves of so much joy unnecessarily by worrying about things we don't even have the power to change. I mean, Jesus said you can't add one cubit to your stature by worrying about it. It's not going to make you taller, and you can't worry about it, so we just need to learn to rest in the Lord, and that's where our joy comes from. When deliverance comes, it'll seem like it comes out of nowhere, but our waiting on God, it can either be a restful waiting or a stressful waiting. That all depends on whether or not we've learned to trust Him and actually rest in Him. So learn to escape into the presence of God even before you escape your circumstances. Because I love the way David words this. He doesn't say that God is a means to my rock. God is a means of deliverance. God is a means of a fortress. God is a means of happiness and joy. No, He is these things. That's who He is. We need to look forward to the ultimate escape, which is to be in His presence for all eternity with no restrictions. That ought to be our focus. Eternally minded. I want to close with this story, this illustration I read years ago. I found this in Philip Yancey's book, Where's God When It Hurts? Highly recommended to read. But he talked about a young man, and he actually got to go interview this young man when he was writing this book. But Brian Sternberg, he broke the NCAA pole vaulting record as a sophomore in college. This was back in 1963. And while training for the Olympics, he had a freak accident while doing just some basic trampoline exercises. I mean, something he did every day, but he just landed some weird way, broke his upper back and made him a quadriplegic. He was paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn't do anything. And for almost 50 years he lived like that. They had a special rack in his bedroom where it could lay him down if he wanted to lay down or it could stand him up if he wanted to stand up. The only purpose was just so he could just kind of look around the room. He couldn't move. He couldn't do anything. And that was 50 years, almost, he spent like that. Now, when he had this accident, he was an atheist. But he later, after the accident, came to saving faith in Christ. And, man, he would... His parents were just right there with him the whole time, and they would help load him up, and they would take him to places to give his testimony and to share the gospel all over the world, really. But years later, he made this statement when sharing his testimony with a young group of athletes. Now, think about the weight of these words. He said, I pray that something like this never happens to you. But if that's what it takes for you to discover your need for God, then I pray that it does happen to you. He said that that accident was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to him because it took him away from his goals and his arrogance and his ambition and everything that he wanted to be and what he wanted to make and the name that he wanted and it put him on his back looking up and all he saw was God. And he said that was better. He was a prisoner to his body, but he said the presence of God was better. And don't you know that somebody like Sternberg knew God on a level that we probably can't even imagine. He couldn't even walk to the bathroom. He couldn't walk to the refrigerator. He couldn't brush his teeth. He couldn't do anything for himself. But he said that the presence of God was real to him. It was powerful. The presence of God in Christ was his escape. And so I want to say this as I close. When you're in distress, where do you go to find real comfort? I mean, really, what is your coping mechanism to find real comfort in trials? If you're trusting other things over and above God, that's an idol. David got to the end of his life and said he's faithful, and he's always been faithful. But he had come to that conclusion through testing. Have you really tested him? And not just gone from you know, trial and say, Lord, get me out of this trial, but do you ask Him to sustain you through the trial? He is a God of all faithfulness and you can trust Him, but can you say on a personal level that He is your God? That you know God through salvation in Jesus Christ. Can you say that He's my God, that I know Him, that I can go to Him, that He is my God? If not, then why not? You need to put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ today. And if you are saved and you struggle with things, go to the rock, go to Him. You can trust Him with your deepest heartache and your biggest trial and your darkest storm. You can trust Him. He is the God of all faith. Aren't you glad for that? What if His faithfulness to us was solely based on our faithfulness to Him? We'd be in a mess, wouldn't we?