Psalm 18:1-6

 

December 28, 2021

 

 

 

The Lord Is My Rock and My Fortress

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:

I love you, O Lord, my strength.  The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.  I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.  The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me;  the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.  In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God, I cried for help.  From his temple, he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.  

 

Few if any of us have had the most powerful man, the king with all his resources wanting to kill us.  And you may be wondering why would king Saul want to spend the time and resources to remove David from planet Earth?  Saul had understood it was not anything he had done that made him the king of Israel; it was God.  He also knew that God had rejected him as king and that David was a man who had God’s favor

 

And Saul in his wicked heart decided to oppose God and kill David.  You may be thinking how foolish, but Saul was totally tuned in two Channel One the deceptive voice of Satan.  Do you recall that at one time God had made Lucifer an archangel and the most beautiful of all God’s creation?  Lucifer's desire to be equal to God causes him to be removed from heaven and he has become not only the enemy of God, and of man.  “So, when the Bible says that Satan is the "god of this world," it is not saying that he has ultimate authority. It is conveying the idea that Satan rules over the unbelieving world in a specific way.  In Corinthians 4:4 the unbeliever follows Satan’s agenda: "The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." Satan’s scheme includes promoting false philosophies in the world—philosophies that blind the unbeliever to the truth of the Gospel. Satan’s philosophies are the fortresses in which people are imprisoned, and they must be set free by Christ.” (taken from the got question)

 

We also have a common enemy that David encounter and you and I also contend with, what we are learning from Psalm 18:1-6, is, that David had witnessed the hand of God on his life and saw the many battles that God had fought for him, and look to God and became a lover of the God he worshiped.  Have no doubt it was not David but God’s protection, God's favor, and blessing so God became not only his God, but David’s salvation, and stronghold.  David was tuned in to Channel Two, the voice of God.

 

A question comes to mind, could it be that often you and I are looking and listening to Channel One and trying to get our needs met outside of Christ?  As one who is a follower of Christ, living in a world that values not God but man.  I want it now, I have rights, I deserve them and I cannot be content without them.  And it matters not what the “it” is. 

 

Such a person will not walk in the joy, peace, and contentment that David walked in, and he had the most powerful man in the world at that time in history trying to kill him.   We need to learn from the Psalm the victory of faith that David had in loving the Father, our mighty God.  And this life is only found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and it is available to all who seek Him, and are willing to obey His teaching.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice