The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Praise be to my rock. Today, on The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, we'll continue with his second half of our study of Psalm 18, as David continues to praise God for provision, deliverance, and total victory. That's coming up next in part two of My God is My Rock.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. In the second half of Psalm 18, David recounts with vivid imagery all the ways that God has rescued him, sustained him, and prospered him through troubled times. In David's eyes, God's ways are absolutely perfect. If you have your Bible, turn now to Psalm 18 as we study verses 25 to 50.

Dr. James Boice: We’re studying the second half of Psalm 18, and I invite you to turn to that. It's one of the great psalms in the psalter, though not as popular a psalm as some of the others, and it has many unusual, unique features about it. Some of them I began to point out a week ago.

One of the special features of the psalm is that it's the first long psalm in the psalter. There are other psalms that are also long. We’re going to come to a number of them, all of them, I’m sure, if we have time to continue the series. We know that Psalm 119 is long; it's famous for being long. It's the longest chapter in the entire Word of God, and there are other long chapters, too. But Psalm 18 is the first long psalm, and that's why we’re taking it in two parts.

It’s also a psalm of thanksgiving, which is at the same time also a kingship psalm. You may recall that I spoke of various types of psalms. The scholars like to divide things into types. One type is a thanksgiving psalm; it usually follows upon a lament. A second type of psalm is a kingship psalm; sometimes those are messianic. And here you have a combination of the two. That's frequently the case that these various types overlap, and this is an example of that.

This psalm is also unique in that the introductory section, that little title that occurs before verse one, is unusually long. It's the second longest introductory title in the psalter. The only one that exceeds it in length is the title of Psalm 60. And that introduces something else that's also significant because when you follow the lead of the title explaining that this is something David sang to the Lord when the Lord had delivered him from all his enemies, and you go back to the Old Testament to see where that is true and look at it carefully, you find the psalm there.

This entire psalm, Psalm 18, occurs in 1 Samuel, the 22nd chapter. And the title, the long title, actually occurs there at the very beginning of the chapter too, which, of course, is why it's so long here. It was simply taken from the earlier book and then put into this one.

The structure is interesting. I didn't say much about that last time except to mention that the psalm is in six parts. We looked at the first three, and we’re going to look at the second three. But let me remind you of what those parts are and then point out an interesting feature of the arrangement of the psalm on that basis.

The first three verses form a first part, and I would call that part praise to God. It's not a very imaginative title, but that's what those verses are about, as many of the psalms are. Here, David is praising God. Then beginning with verse four and continuing as far as verse 19, you have a section which describes David's deliverance from his enemies. This is the unfolding of the thing that we found in the title when God delivered him from all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

Following that, verses 20 through 24, there's a reflection on that deliverance. David is asking the question: why is it that God delivered me? And he answers that, so that section is why God delivered David. Then in verses 25 to 26, you have another section which is an important principle growing out of what he just said in the previous verses. He'd asked the question why did God deliver me, he answered it, and now he broadens that or universalizes it in those verses.

In verses 30 through 45, you have a restatement of his deliverance. In other words, this is the story of David's deliverance described earlier in verses four through 19 retold. And finally, at the very end of the psalm, verse 46 through 50, you find David praising God once again, and I title this praise to my rock.

Now, the interesting feature of that is that each of the parts in the second half of the psalm repeat what you find in the parts in the first half of the psalm, only in inverse order. The fourth part repeats what you find in part three, the fifth part repeats what you find in part two, and the last part of the psalm, part six, repeats what you find in part one, that is at the beginning.

So what you have is this: you have David beginning with praise to God, you have him unfolding why he’s praising God, you have him developing a principle out of that, universalizing the principle, retelling what God did for him, and then ending as he began with praise to God. And that's why the theme of God as his rock, which occurs at the very beginning in verse two, "the Lord is my rock, my God is my rock," reappears at the end where we find David says, "the Lord lives, praise be to my rock."

Now, that doesn't mean, of course, that what he says in the second half is mere repetition. It obviously is done in different words, and being done in different words, it introduces different ideas. But when you see it that way, you begin to see how this flows and why we end up where we do.

Now, let's look at part four, this part that I call an important principle. It's related to part three, and in order to understand it, we have to back up a little bit, and I have to remind you of what part three said. David asked the question: why did God deliver me? And he answered in rather bold language as it seems to us, "the Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me."

And then in case you don't get what he's claiming, he spells it out: "I have kept the ways of the Lord. I have not done evil by turning from my God. All his laws are before me. I have not turned away from his decrees." Now, that does present a question. If this is written toward the end of his life, as we believe it is because of its placing in 1 Samuel 22, it came after his sin with Bathsheba.

And you ask the question: how could he claim that late on in his life? Maybe at the beginning he could say, "generally speaking, I’ve lived a pure life." But here at the end, how could he say this sort of thing? Well, the answer, I think, is what we find in the section to which we come now. Because when he broadens it or universalizes it, what he’s saying is this: as a general principle, this is the way God operates.

And if you had said to David, "well, what about that situation with Bathsheba?" he would have said, "that illustrates the point because a lot of difficulties came into my life as a result." Generally speaking, he would say, "I have tried to follow God, and God has blessed me, as God does for those who seek his face." God knows that we are not sinless; none of us are. But he does promise blessing for sinful human beings like us who nevertheless try to serve him and do his will.

Now, the principle is spelled out very nicely in this section. It's something that we should reflect on at some length. To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure. It's a way of saying that God deals with men as men deal with him. If you're honest with God, God is straightforward with you. If you are corrupt in your dealings with God, God deals with you in the same way.

The difficulty, however, is when you begin to take the negative side of that and make a direct parallel. It's one thing to say if you're honest with God, God will be honest with you; if you're pure in your dealings with God, God will be pure in your dealings with you. But how about when you talk about the negatives, how when you talk about sin? If you're sinful, what can you say? God will be sinful with you? I can't say that. God isn't sinful; God doesn't do any evil.

So how does David handle the second side of that? He wants to make both sides of it. What he does is pick a fairly ambiguous word. It's there in the latter half of verse 26, "to the crooked you show yourself shrewd." Now, it's actually the same word, so it really says to the crooked you show yourself crooked. The real word is twisted. If you want to take it literally, the verse says to the twisted you show yourself twisted.

But that doesn't sound very good either, does it? You can't say God is twisted in his dealings with us. So the translators do the best thing they can; they just throw in a different word. They say to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. But what they really mean is if you're not right with God, if you are devious with him, God will outwit you because he won't allow you to get away with it. That's what the text is saying. That's David's way of trying to handle the other side of the coin.

That is true. This doesn't handle every case that you can possibly imagine, and when I was talking about it in terms of section three, I was pointing out that it doesn't handle the case of Job. Job is called in the book of Job a righteous man; even God himself made that judgment on the patriarch Job. He said to Satan, "have you considered my servant Job, a righteous man, there's none like him in all the earth?"

Apparently, at least at that time in history, Job was the most upright man who ever lived, and yet he endured all kinds of misfortune. We find out as we read the book and study it that God had his purposes in that. There were wise purposes, and although Job didn't understand what they were, just like many times in our lives we don't understand what's going on when bad things happen, Job trusted God and in the end, God brought it around right and rewarded him and so on.

But in the middle portions of that book, you have a situation that, strictly speaking, does not conform to what you find here. Or again, I mentioned the case of the man who was born blind. The disciples saw that man born blind and they said to Jesus, making that one-on-one association that we want to do, "who sinned? This man's obviously suffering for sin. Was it this man himself?" That is, he would have had to have sinned before he was born. That didn't seem to be the best of all possible explanations. Or was it his parents? They said, "is he being judged for something his parents did?"

Now, there are things like that. There are consequences for children of what the parents do. But Jesus said in this case, at least, that's not the explanation. This man was born blind simply for the glory of God. In other words, God allowed him to be born blind so that at this point in his life, and he was now well into middle age, Jesus Christ would come along and heal him and so bring glory to God who has the power to bring light out of darkness. And the man came to spiritual light, and God blessed him in a rich way.

But you see, there's a situation which you would say does not strictly conform to the principle. It doesn't cover every contingency because God's ways are beyond our comprehension and he does many things in our lives that we never fully understand. But what this is saying is that as a general principle, this is true. If you go in God's way, you'll find that he goes with you and blesses you and keeps you from trouble. And when you go your own way, when you choose sin rather than righteousness, well, you'll suffer the consequences for it. David says that he chose righteousness and therefore the Lord kept his lamp burning and turned his darkness into light. Many, many Christian people have that testimony.

In section five, verse 30 and following, David begins to retell the story of his deliverance, only now he tells it from his own perspective rather than from the perspective of God. If you think back to what we said about that second section beginning with verse four earlier on in the psalm, you recall that there David spoke of the deliverance in very exalted terms. He’s borrowing language from the accounts of the great interventions of God on behalf of his people in previous history.

One time at which God had done that was Mount Sinai where God had come down upon the mountain with earthquakes and thunders and lightnings and smoke that was so terrifying. It says in the book of Hebrews all the people trembled, and even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." He borrows that kind of language. There is the language associated with the conquest when the waters of the Jordan River were divided so the people could cross, and when God intervened miraculously during the battles that were conducted under the governorship of Joshua.

And on one occasion, God literally rained hail from heaven to destroy the Jews' enemies. David picks up on that language here. And so as he writes, you have what seems at first glance to us simply to be flights of poetic fancy and high language, but he is really borrowing from that tradition. And he is saying God has intervened in my life in the same way, not necessarily by the thunder and the lightnings and the smoke and the hail and the dividing of the water, but it's the same God and his hand was seen in the victories which I achieved as his king over his and our enemies. All of that is described from God's perspective.

But now, you see, he comes in this fifth section to do the same thing all over again. But now he does it from his own perspective, what it actually meant to him. What he does here is speak of the special ways in which God helped him, and he speaks, you'll notice, of the various parts of his body.

He says it is God who arms me with strength. In other words, he made my arms strong. How about my feet? Well, God made my feet like the feet of a deer. How about my hands? He made my hands ready for battle, my arms that can bend a bow of bronze, and even his ankles, he says. God broadened the path beneath me so my ankles did not turn. There's the language of a warrior who knows what it is to be strengthened in battle so he can prevail over an enemy. He says God came to me and supplied my every need.

Now, in what follows, he talks about the extent of the victory. And what he says here is that God gave him total victory. He didn't merely push back his enemies for a little bit; he was so victorious that they were driven back and destroyed. They were so cast down they couldn't rise. And for a long period, at least during David's reign, that is really what happened. David was so successful, God blessing him, that he established a reign of peace, and Israel was literally delivered from the pressure of their enemies. And the result of that was that under Solomon's reign, there was a period of great prosperity.

Now, you and I are not kings, and we’re not warriors, most of us. And it doesn't matter, these things that David describes. What difference does it make that our feet are like the feet of a deer or our hands made ready for battle or our arms made strong? I suppose if you're a football player, some of that might help. What difference does it make that you have total victory over your enemies? We’re not called to that kind of position; we’re not to fight that kind of warfare.

But you see, when David talks this way, what he’s saying is whatever my need, God is the answer to my need and God provides it. And it's at that level that you and I need to provide it for ourselves. What is it that you and I need? Most of us in our work need wisdom. The Bible speaks of that. It says in James, "if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives liberally to all and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. Only let him ask in faith, nothing wavering because he that wavereth is double-minded, and let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." There's a great encouragement to pray believing that God will provide wisdom if wisdom's what we need.

Is it peace? Are you troubled inside? Are you restless, unable to settle down? Do you sense that you lack peace with God and peace with others? Jesus Christ said, "I’ve come to give peace, my peace I give to you, not like the world gives unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." That's Jesus speaking.

Do we need faith? Do we need self-control? Do we need long-suffering? The Bible speaks of those things as the fruit of the Spirit: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and so on. The whole list is there. Anything you want, anything you need, you see, is provided by God. And what David is saying is that he has found that to be true, and that's why he’s praising God. He praises God as his rock, his all-sufficient one, the one in whose shadow he is able to prosper and has. And so the psalm reaches out to us and speaks to us to tell us to draw near to this God.

There’s one interesting combination of verses here that you shouldn't miss between verse 30 and verse 32. Verse 30 says, "as for God, his way is perfect." And who can doubt that? God's way has to be perfect. It's because he's God. But notice verse 32, "and he makes my way perfect." If you go in the way of the perfect God, you'll find that your way is made perfect as well, and that's David's testimony.

Finally, in verses 46 through the end, we come to the last section. One interesting feature of this second half of the psalm is that there are messianic allusions, that is, it points beyond David himself to the Messiah, even to Jesus, and we find that here. Reason I say that is because verse 49 is quoted by the Apostle Paul in reference to Jesus Christ specifically in the book of Romans. It's one of four verses that he uses there to show that Christ came in order to bring the gospel to the Gentiles.

He quotes this psalm first of all. "I tell you, Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles also may glorify God for his mercy, because it's written: therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, I will sing hymns of praise to your name." That's a quotation from this psalm, and also of course from 1 Samuel 22, which contains the psalm in full.

And then he gives three more references to make the same point. "Again it says: rejoice oh Gentiles with his people." That's a quotation from Deuteronomy 32. "And again: praise the Lord all you Gentiles and sing praises to him all you people." That's Psalm 117, verse 1. And then finally, a text from Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 10: "the root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations, the Gentiles will place their hope in him."

So Paul takes this verse from the 18th Psalm and quotes it along with three other verses to show that Jesus came not only to be the savior of the Jews, but of the Gentiles too. Now, you look back to the psalm and you say, is that really right? Is he quoting that properly? Because as we read it, verse 49, it would seem that what David is praising God for is giving him victory over the Gentile nations. "I’ll praise you among the nations. God has made me, David, so victorious that I’m going to praise you wherever I go. I will sing praises to your name."

Well, you might think that if you only looked at verse 49. But if you go on to verse 50, you'll see that the way in which Paul takes it is justified because what David has in mind as he says that is that God was giving him victories not only for himself, but also for those who should come after him, his descendants. And the greatest of those descendants is Jesus, the Messiah. David had been promised that the Messiah would come, and he certainly had that in mind. One commentator said God allowed David to be victorious so the victories of his great descendant Jesus Christ might follow.

Now, when you have that in mind, you go back over the psalm and it's possible to see it in terms of the ministry of Jesus Christ. I put it that way, saying it's possible to see it in terms of the ministry of Jesus Christ and not saying it prophesies the coming of Jesus Christ because those are two different things. I think it's overextending the psalm to say here we have in the Old Testament a prophecy of the suffering and deliverance and victory and final rule of Jesus Christ.

And yet, nevertheless, it is possible to look at it in those terms. Now, a number of commentators have done this. I’m always uneasy with this kind of approach, but I recognize that there's some validity in it as long as you keep it under control. H.A. Ironside was one who did this. Arno C. Gaebelein is another, and the great Saint Augustine did it. As a matter of fact, Saint Augustine's commentary on the psalms is almost exclusively in terms of what he perceived it to be saying about Jesus Christ. So much so that when I read it, I hardly find Augustine's material to be useful.

You think back, you'll find that I’ve not been quoting Saint Augustine as we’ve done these expositions. It is, in my judgment, so far-fetched in terms of its allusions that I just find it unacceptable. And yet, nevertheless, when you look at the psalm this way, you do find that it can be handled along these lines. Let me suggest how Arno C. Gaebelein does it because he's worked it out perhaps in the most acceptable way. He says verses one through six talk about Jesus Christ's death.

Now, he knows that these words are David's and that they can be ours also as we reflect the same experience David has, but he feels that they’re especially Jesus' words because as David says in those verses, God has delivered him from Sheol or from death. And God certainly did that with Jesus Christ literally.

He finds that verses seven to 18 speak of Jesus' resurrection. He sees the description of God's special manifestations of himself in verses seven to 18 of the resurrection and an even fuller revelation at the final judgment. Verses 19 through 27, according to Gaebelein, have to do with the exaltation of Christ. In these verses, David is protesting his innocence, how blameless he is. Gaebelein says you can't say that about any mere man; it has to have its real fulfillment in Jesus. He's the only blameless man who ever lived.

In verses 28 through 42, you have a foretaste of Christ's victory. The nations are described as being subject to Jesus. Now, again, Gaebelein was no fool; he recognized that this is a description of David's victories, but he says that it does have its fulfillment in Jesus Christ under whose feet all the nations will be put. And finally, in verses 43 through 50, you have a description of his kingdom, his final rule, which Gaebelein unfolds.

Now, as I say, I think perhaps that's reading a bit too much into it, and yet it is possible, if we know of the suffering and resurrection and victory and return of Jesus Christ, to see language that at least describes that here in the psalm. I want to end on another note, however, and this note gets us back to the theme of the psalm, the theme we saw in verse one, which we also find coming in here again at the end, the idea of God being the psalmist’s rock.

That's a great theme. We’ve already seen some of the things it means. A rock in the desert would be an object which gave shade and protection and in the shadow of which a garden could flourish, where otherwise it would simply be scorched out by the sun. A rock was also a place to which a fugitive could run to be safe. He could hide among the rocks, or it could be a firm foundation under his feet. We examined that a little bit in the last study.

Another use of it, however, was picked up by the great hymn writer Augustus Toplady in that hymn that we all know, one of the best-known hymns in the English language, Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me. Has an interesting story behind it. Some have disputed whether it ever happened, but I think it's true and it goes like this: Toplady was a minister and a hymn writer in England about the time of the American Revolution. And about the time all these events were transpiring here, he was carrying on a preaching ministry there.

On one occasion, he was out in the country, a storm came by and he took shelter in a rock that was there near his parish. That rock is there; people will point it out today. And while he was hidden in the cleft of the rock from the fury of the storm, he began to reflect on the situation spiritually and the words of a hymn began to form in his mind. He didn't want to forget them; he wanted something upon which he could write them. He looked down at his feet, somebody had been there before him and had dropped a playing card.

And so he picked up the playing card and he wrote down the words of this hymn. I’m told that card still exists somewhere in England. And you know the words: Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. One of the best-known hymns of the English language. It describes how this Rock of Ages, the one who is praised in the psalm, the one in whom David found his comfort, that solid rock in which he was safe, that foundation upon which he would build. That rock nevertheless came to us in the person of Jesus Christ and allowed himself to be crucified that we might be saved.

God was never more our rock than in the crucifixion, and those who know that and trust him can look to this psalm and see there a great portrayal of all that Jesus Christ did. It wouldn't be right to end a study of a psalm like that without asking whether Jesus Christ is indeed your rock. We have all sorts of claims in our day by organizations and movements to be a rock upon which an individual can build. One life insurance company even uses it as their theme: the rock. And yet all those rocks are going to pass away. One day heaven and earth itself will pass away, and it'll all be no more. But the Rock of Ages will endure.

And if you're hidden in him, then your salvation is secure as the existence of God himself because it's on that basis that you are entitled to live. So I ask: are you in him? If you are, now is the time to rejoice; if you're not, now is the time to believe. The Bible says now is the day of salvation, and so it is. Let us pray.

Our Father, we do thank you that you, the rock, that great foundation, the unshakable Rock of Ages, nevertheless allowed yourself to be shaken for our sakes, crucified, killed. That great rock split in order that by faith we might hide within it and find protection as the storms of your judgment, as well as the storms of life, pass by. Our Father, do speak to all who are here, those who know you, give them great joy that they belong to such a God and allow them to cry out as David does, "the Lord lives, praise be to my rock." And those who don't know you, may this be the time in which they turn from all insecure foundations and inadequate fortresses and so hide themselves in Christ. We pray in his blessed name, Amen.

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