psalms 18

I will love thee, O Lord, my strength [Ps. 18:1].

When was the last time you told the Lord you loved Him? To tell Him you love Him is one of the most wonderful things you can do. Praise toward God begins because He loves us and has provided a salvation for us. He preserves us and by His providence watches over us.

Notice that the Lord is called “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 [Ps. 18:2].

He calls the Lord his strength, his rock, his fortress, and his deliverer—in all of this He is his Savior, you see. Then he says again that He is his strength, He is his shield, his horn, and his high tower. He is my shield—He protects me. He is my horn, my power. By laying hold of the horns of the altar a person would be safe from his attackers. That is how we need to hold on to our God today. The Lord, our Savior, is our horn. He is our high tower. A high tower is also a good place for protection and a good place to get a vision and a perspective of life. Many of us need to go to the high tower. This verse contains excellent names for our God.

The word that interests me a great deal is the personal pronoun my. David says, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer.” It is one thing to talk about the attributes of God and say He is omnipotent, but the important thing is to say He is my strength. It is one thing to say He is a shepherd. David could have said, “The Lord is a shepherd,” and He is, but it is altogether different to say, “He is my shepherd.”

I think I can illustrate wh*at I am talking about. One day I went out to the airport to pick up my wife and grandson. She brought him back on a plane so that he would not have to travel from the East coast in a car. There were lots of little boys and girls at the airport. They were all precious children, and as I looked at them I smiled. Then all of a sudden here comes one that is different. Do you know what makes him different? He is my grandson. There were lots of grandparents there, and, oh, how sentimental we grandparents can become! Their grandchildren were just as special to them as mine was to me—all because of the little possessive pronoun my.

Can you say, “The Lord is my shepherd; He is my high tower; He is my horn; He is my shield; He is my strength; He is my deliverer; He is my rock; He is my fortress”?

I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies [Ps. 18:3].

Worship comes from the old Anglo–Saxon word worth. Worship is that which is extended to the one who is worthy. David sang, “I will call upon the Lord”—why? Because He “is worthy to be praised.”

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid [Ps. 18:4].

Once again the psalm reaches out and touches the Lord Jesus Christ. Bishop Horne saw something else in this psalm. Let me quote from him:

Let us suppose King Messiah, like His progenitor of old, is seated upon the throne. From thence let us imagine Him taking a retrospective view of the sufferings He had undergone, the battles He had fought and the victories He had gained. With this before our minds, we shall be able in some measure, to conceive the force of the words “With all the yearnings of affection I will love Thee, O Jehovah, My strength, through My union with whom I have finished My work, and am now exalted to praise Thee in those who are redeemed.” Whenever we sing this Psalm, let us think we are singing it in conjunction with our Saviour, risen from the dead; a consideration, which surely will incite us to do it with becoming gratitude and devotion. (Quoted in A. C. Gaebelein, The Book of Psalms, p. 82).

What a picture! Friend, this happens to be a psalm we can join Him in singing.

Listen to him now, as he recounts his experiences—and I think this presents the life of David in a limited way, but more especially the life of the Lord Jesus who said, “The sorrows of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.”

The sorrows of hell [Sheol, the grave] compassed me about: the snares of death prevented [were round about] 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 [Ps. 18:5–6].

Notice again “my God.” And what happened? God responded. And what happened when the Lord Jesus was brought back from the grave? The next few verses tell us. (In the following section the first person possessive pronoun changes to the third person, and it refers to the Lord.)

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth [Ps. 18:7].

He was angry with sinful men for what they had done to His Son. The Gospels tell us that when the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre there was an earthquake. What else took place in the heavens which corresponds to the following verses we do not know.

There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.

He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and 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 the skies [Ps. 18:8–11].

There was darkness on the day that the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. Who did all of this?

The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire [Ps. 18:13].

This psalm began using the pronoun my. Then it changed at verse 7 and talked about what God has done. Now in this next verse it is “He and me.” That may be bad grammar, but that is the way it is here—He and me!

He sent from above, he took me, he 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 [Ps. 18:16–17].

“He delivered me from my strong enemy.” Oh, how you and I need a personal, vital relationship with God! Let’s come to grips with Him. He has delivered us from the enemy. Do you need help today? Do you need a partner today? I want to recommend One to you. He will never desert you. He will never leave you alone. He will never forsake you. He says, “… lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20). That is the reason that I depend on Him more than I depend on anyone. That is also the reason you should depend on Him instead of depending on any human being. Psalm 118:8 says, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”

He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man [Ps. 18:48].

“The violent man” I think is Satan.

Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name.

Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore [Ps. 18:49–50].

God extends His mercy to us today. This marvelous psalm closes on a note of praise to God. Oh, that there might be praise in your mouth and mine, in your life and mine, in your heart and mine, toward our God! Praise to God. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so” (Ps. 107:1–2). If the redeemed do not say the Lord is good, nobody else in the world will. The redeemed ought to say so. We need some “say–so” Christians.¹

1 McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: Poetry (Psalms 1-41) (electronic ed., Vol. 17, pp. 100–104). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.