Well, if you have your Bibles tonight, go with us to Psalm 18. Psalm 18. We are not going to try to cover this entire Psalm tonight. I've got it laid out to cover all of it, but it's just a lot to try to digest. There's too much good in it to just skip over. So we're going to break it up Lord willing, into two parts. We'll see how far we get tonight. I've really been stuck on one verse in particular, but we're going to try to make it through several here. Here in Psalm 18, the first 19 verses, it 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, and 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. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because of he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and a fire out of his mouth devoured. Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and the darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly, yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place. His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of skies. At the brightness that was before him, his thick clouds passed hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the highest gave his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows and scattered them. He shot out lightnings and disconfitted them. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the fountains of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord. At the blast of thy breath, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. He sent from above, he took me and drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me, for they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the days of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because He delighted in me." Now there's 50 verses in Psalm 18, but we're not going to read all of them tonight. Lord willing, we'll cover the rest of them over the next couple of weeks. As we begin to read this, the subscript at the top of the psalm there is dealing with the different enemies that David has faced and he mentions Saul as well. This is a psalm of praise from deliverance from the different enemies that he has faced. And as I began to read this and began to ponder on it this week, it is a struggle for me to try to stay broad in these things and just do an overview. But I couldn't help but just really get honed in on a couple of verses here. These first two or three verses, it says, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. read about that. He began to show me this position of safety that we find here with David as he has been running from Saul. If you can say it this way, he's been assaulted in the throne room of Saul. He's had the javelins thrown at him. He's been chased out into the wilderness. He spent time in the cave. He's went down to the Philistine nation there and has hid out in those different areas. But David understands that it's not about what the world does, it's not about the power of the world, but rather it is about his position of safety in his God. It's the same fellow that stood before Goliath and he's standing there and he's questioning the nation of Israel. Why are we not going out to fight? Is our God not bigger than these Philistines? And he goes out and he slays Goliath. He understands where his safety comes from. In our world that we live in, we spend so much time, so much money, so much effort in research on safety. I don't know what the exact rule is now. When I was a kid, you was allowed to bounce around in the front seat of the car. I remember dad going through a gas station parking lot and I bounced off everything in there. And now you got to be 12, 13 years old, weigh 85 pounds. It's a whole big list of things that you got to meet. You got to be over 4 foot 8. Well, that knocks my sister out almost. And she's 25. All in the name of safety. You read on the back of anything. And they've got all these warning labels. I actually seen something the other day that I had heard about it, but I had never actually seen it in person, but I was up at the grocery store the other day, and I was buying laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent pods for the dishwasher. And on the top of the box it said, not for human consumption. And I thought, what a sad day we live in that we have to label things like that. But we're always after safety. The world is trying to be a safe place. You hear that said a lot in our society. We're trying to get to our safe space. I can remember when the 20, I think it was the 2016 election, I was working on the campus of Virginia Tech College. And it didn't go the way a lot of them wanted. And I remember them broadcasting over the radio, we have safe spaces set up for those who are affected by the election. There are, and this is what they said over the radio, there are crayons, juice boxes, and soft music. The world is always looking for safe places, but David recognizes and understands that there's only one place that's truly safe. It's not in the security that the world can offer you. The world will not offer you anything that will last. It'll say, today we're safe and tomorrow you're invaded. We were the nation that was supposed to be untouchable until it happened. Pearl Harbor, September 11th. We were an untouchable nation until something happened. And all of a sudden we're vulnerable again. But if you look at what David says here, and I don't know that I'm going to make it past where we're at here, but if you look here in verse 1 and verse 2, he says, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. He understands that nowhere in the world is he going to find the strength that he needs to survive, to thrive, to live outside of the Lord. Verse 2, I just got hung up in there and I was looking at that and I was thinking about it this morning as I was having a hard time just thinking about tonight, this morning as I was trying to preach about the safety that is near the Lord. They were in the midst of a giant storm, but they were as safe as they could be because they were near their Savior. Look at what he says again here in verse 2. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. We see stability there. What is Jesus Christ? He is our rock. He is the rock of my salvation. surety of my salvation. My salvation doesn't rest on anything else but him. Says he's my fortress. He's the place that I can run into the place that I can go to when the enemy attacks that is in unpenetrable by the world. He's my fortress. We're living in days that are unsettled, we're living in days that are very much ingrained in trouble and tribulation and they're trying to make everything the biggest problem that's ever lived. And you look, there's always something going on to make the world tumultuous and it's billowing over with evil things and it's just bad. And their desire would be for you to go down with the ship. And we see the attack of Satan on believers today. We watch as things happen that you and I couldn't have imagined. But I've got a fortress that this world cannot get through. The world has no ability to penetrate it. It comes up against the fortress that is God, and it cannot get past it. As I watch the way the world goes, and you listen to the rhetoric that's spread, you listen to all of the things that's said. If we're not careful, we can get very distracted and find ourselves consumed with what's going on out there. It's easy to do. But David says, I know where my stability is at. He is my rock. And he's my fortress. He's where I go when the enemy attacks. But then he says this. He is my fortress, but not only is he my stability and he's my safety. But he's my escape. Look at what it says there, he is my deliverer. Old David knew something about being delivered by God. When he's standing before Saul and they're all literally standing there shaking in their boots afraid to go out and fight Goliath. David said, My God that delivered me from the hands of the paw of the lion and the mouth of the bear is able to defeat this Philistine. He understood some things about being delivered from those who would seek to do him harm. In our world, we look for deliverance in just about every other arena but God. We look for the government to deliver us, to bail us out. We look to mom and dad or grandma and grandpa to bail us out. We look to this person over here to bail us out. If I can get this new career, it'll bail me out. No, the only deliverer I've got that's ever been worth anything truly is my God. He's the one that has delivered me from the mouth of the lion and the paw of the bear. He's the one that has brought us through the dark hours of life. He's the one that has shorn up our walk. He's the one that has stabilized where we're at. He's the one that has secured my salvation. There's nothing in the world that I could do to be secure in it other than trust in Him. He is my strength, is what the psalmist says here. My God, my strength, in whom I will trust. He says, I know that my strength will fail, but your strength will never fail. We spend a lot of time and energy on trying to be strong, but the reality is Our Father is the only strength that will ever get us through the day. You can work all your life to be the most fit person in the world, and if God decides it's your time, there's no amount of doctors going to fix it. He is my strength. He's not just my strength physically. He's my strength spiritually. Just like the men were going through this morning when they were on the boat. There was a potential there for them to live in the strength of their father that told them to go to the other side. But what did they do? They began to rely on their strength to fight the storm. When if they would have relied on his strength, they could have took a nap. I don't know, that sounds better idea to me. David says, I understand all my help comes from the Lord. It does not come from man. It does not come from me. It comes straight from on high. He is my deliverer. He is my strength. He is my God in whom I will trust. Then he says, The next phrase here he says, he is my buckler. I began to look at that and when I first started looking at it I thought, Maybe like the buckle on your shoe, you know, it's what secures your feet. Or the buckle on your belt. But no, that's not what that term means. It means He is my shield. He is my shield. He is the one that will defend me from attack. I'm learning in this life there's very little I can do to defend myself. In this walk with God. In fact, most of the time when somebody has something to say. All I can do is be quiet. Because he's my shield. He is the one that takes care of me. He's the one that is defending me from all of the fiery darts of the wicked. It's not about what I can do, it's not in my abilities, in my strength. No, it's about a holy and a righteous God that looks down on His people and He desires to protect them. He is my buckler, He's my shield. I'm so glad that He is my defense. God's been pretty good at defending me. In ways that I never could have, I could not have orchestrated. The best lawyer could not have orchestrated it the way God has done it. Both physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. He has been my defense. And I've watched as the men of God that I know and my parents and different ones that I'm privy to, I've watched as they have made stands for God. They've done what God has asked them to do. Understand where David is at. He's at because he's in the right. David did not do anything wrong when Saul chunked a spear at him. What do you do when you've done nothing wrong? What defense do you offer? There is none other than He is my defense. And I've gotten to see God deliver His people on many occasion from those who would desire to do them harm because of His being my shield. Then He says there, He is the horn of my salvation and He is my high tower. The horn of my salvation has the idea That He is my strength. So not only is He my fortress that I can hide in, He's my rock so that I can rest on. He's my deliverer that can get me out. He's my buckler. He's my shield. He's the one in whom I trust. But He's also my strength. There will be days, if there have not already been days in your life, that your strength will fail you spiritually to the point you cannot take another step in God's direction. There will be days to where you run out of strength. Our strength is frail and very minuscule at best when it comes to God. But I like it, it's the idea that I'm running and I get tired. And I'm finding out just how little I can do. And God comes along and He scoops me up and He carries me. And He says, how about we do this in my strength? I gave this illustration some time back, but it holds true for today. I can remember me and dad were building something years ago. This is 25 years ago or better. I'm just a little fella. And we're carrying two by six boards or two by four boards or whatever it was and I was just a little bitty fella. And boy I thought I was really helping. I had a hold of that board and we was walking. what I did not know at the time and would not know until later when you learn that sort of stuff is that my dad was holding the middle of the board so that I got to hold on but I didn't have any of the weight and I got to participate and I got to accomplish whatever was being accomplished but it wasn't in my strength that it happened it was in my father's strength The same is true with our Heavenly Father today. He carried the cross all the way to Golgotha so that I might be able to walk around in His strength and in His power. I like what the Apostle Peter said when the guy was begging alms of them. He said, silver and gold have I none such as I have. Give I thee in the name of the Lord Jesus. He said, I got no strength, I got no ability in and of myself. But there's one thing I have that will help you. And it's some strength that comes from on high. It's my Lord. That's the only thing that'll help this nation. It's the only thing that'll help you. It's the only thing that'll help me. Is if we get hooked up to the power source. The one with all the strength. It's what'll get you through when the times get tough. It's the thing that'll get you through when the world comes against you. We're getting into the section next, and I don't know that I'm going to make it there today, but we're going to get into a section where he says, I feel like death has come against me. I feel like hell has come against me. And there will be days in the believer's life, in your life, if it has not already taken place, that it's going to feel, and it will be true, that hell has come against you as hard as it can come. The world has come against you as hard as it can come. And if you're trying to do it in your own strength, you will fail every time. But he says, you don't have to. Because he says, there's a better strength that I can use. When I was in Bible college, I'm 5'6". At the time, I weighed about probably 190-200 pounds. So I was smaller than I am now. Always been short, very short. Always been pretty strong, but strong don't matter much when you can't reach whatever you're trying to fight. I got like two foot arms. It doesn't take a whole lot to get me out of range. Now, we get on the floor, I might do all right. But if it's a fist fight, I'm in trouble. But I was friends with a guy, We were talking about him the other day. His name was Curtis Presnell. And old Curtis Presnell had been to prison three different times. He was the kind of guy you didn't know. He was a drug enforcer. He was the guy that got called when you didn't pay. And the Lord graciously and miraculously saved him and called him to preach. Now picture Curtis. He's probably, I don't know, he's probably six foot, maybe a little shorter than that. I think at the time he weighed around 400 pounds, had a neck the size of a basketball, and hands that both of mine would fit inside. The dude was big as a bull. And I'm not talking fat, I'm talking, he looked like this. He told me he messed his shoulder up from picking his car up and moving it because somebody parked too close to him. And I seen him toss a guy that weighed about 260 and was like 6'3". He picked him up and threw him like I could throw Ellie. And I looked at him and I said, I'm glad you're my friend. Because if I ever get in trouble, I'm going to say, you got to talk to this guy. I always liked having big friends. Saves me from having to fight if I got a big friend. Well, do you know you got a big friend tonight? When the world comes against you and the devil's fighting you for tooth and nail and hell's come against you with all the demons it can muster, you can say, talk to my friend. and His strength will fight the battle for you. I sure am glad that I've got a strong friend tonight. I don't know if that's helping you, but it's been helping me all day. You ever get something just stuck in your craw and you just can't get rid of it? That's the way I felt all day about this. It says He's the horn of my salvation, He's my strength. And then it says He's my high tower. It almost sounds like God would be a good thing to hang around. That high tower has the idea of being some place unreachable. It's sort of like a fortress except it's higher up. You've heard of, if you've studied castles or anything, there's what they call the keep. And that's the most safe place in the castle. That's where you go and nobody can get to you. That's what he is for me. I can go into the keep of his salvation. And nothing in this world has the ability to take me out. Nothing in this world has the ability to remove me from his presence. I'm sure glad he's my high tower tonight. He is my strength. He is my keeper. He is my salvation. He is my... That's what he even says there in verse 3. He says, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemies. David understood exactly where his salvation came from. It says in the Bible that David was a mighty man of valor. And David had a whole host of mighty men that ran with him, a warrior's warrior. He said, these fellows can't hold a candle to my Lord. All my swordsmanship, all my strength has no ability compared to God in His ability to look after me. That's a mighty important fact to know when you're about to go through some things. That's a mighty important fact to know when you've been through some things. That's a mighty important fact to know why you're in the middle of some things. Because David was still running. And he's giving this psalm, as far as I know, somewhere along the path between then and becoming king. And he understood that no amount of men coming against him would matter at all as long as he had the Lord. I don't want to frighten you, I don't want to discourage you, I don't want to make you all depressed, but the world we're living in is not going to get better. November 5th or whenever it is comes along, it's not going to change very much. On Wednesday we're going to wake up and life's going to keep going on. Not much is going to change. Except for things will continually get worse. That's what the Bible says it's going to do. At the end times it's going to wax worse and worse. But in the midst of it waxing worse and worse, He keeps getting better and better. Oh, heaven, it gets sweeter as the days go by, as the old song says. Because I've got a Lord. He's my strength. He's my fortress. He's my high tower. He's in whom I put my trust. I don't know about you tonight, but it has helped my soul thinking about the strength of my Father. and how he is worthy to be praised. I believe we're going to leave off there tonight, Lord willing. This one may take a little longer to get through. But I reckon that's alright. There's just too much there, I just couldn't get away from it. I couldn't overview it. It's just too good not to look at it for a little while.