DELIVERANCE! (Psalm 18)

There’s an old folk tale about some blind men trying to describe an elephant. One touched a stout leg and said it was like a tree. The one who touched the elephant’s side called it a strong wall. The one the elephant grabbed by its trunk was sure this mystery was a serpent. The one switched by the animal’s tail thought it was a rope.

Psalm 18 is a lot like that.  It is full of images of God as our rock-solid Protector and Sovereign as David reflects on God’s help in battles against Saul and national enemies. Much of it is also quoted in 2 Samuel 22.

When we’re going through difficult and discouraging times, it’s easy to think God has better things to do than look down and help us. Psalm 18 counters that with a multitude of metaphors of God’s power and care. Its diverse symbols are one reason I keep going back to it to be reminded that nothing is too hard for God. At one of the lowest times of my life, these verses burned into my spirit:

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights….

You broaden the path beneath me so that my ankles do not turn. (vv. 32-33, 36)

In 1980, two years after both my parents died, I was finishing up a master’s degree at a respected college 2,000 miles from my roots. It had a reputation of placing graduates in Christian publishing, and that was my goal.  I’d saved money for years so I could attend without student loans, and I would graduate without debt. Despite lots of job inquiries, however, I was still jobless just a week before I had to vacate college housing with no place to go and little left for living expenses. I had no car--just my typewriter, books, bedding and clothes. With my parents deceased, going “home” wasn’t an option.

I felt like I was stumbling down a boulder-strewn path, spraining my ankles at every turn. Yet I wanted to claim the image of sure-footedness in this psalm:

With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. (v. 20)

The impossible “dream job” offer came just days before I would have been homeless. Another employee provided temporary housing (a mattress on the floor of her bedroom) until I got my feet on the ground.  God-things.

Psalm 18 is for rocky times. It opens with images of strength and military might that involve strong places of protection:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.  He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (v. 2)

 It’s also a reminder of the unfathomable love of God:

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (v. 19)

No matter the challenge, Psalm 18 pulses with hope. It nourishes the weary and wary with the rock-solid truth that God can give us the strength to face our problems. “The Lord lives!  Praise be to my rock! Exalted be God my Savior!” (v. 46).

Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 95: Gratitude and Grumblers

Part of an ongoing series on selected psalms.
If you’re like me, you have people in your life who are grumblers. You don’t enjoy being around them because the conversation soon turns downward. In trying to coax them to count their blessings instead of rehearsing old negatives, you realize you’re not completely clean of negativism yourself. Psalm 95 holds up a mirror to this very problem. We know that praise and worship please God. But the sin nature pulls us down into complaining, even though God has done so much for us. With its two-part message, this psalm lifts us, then chides us.

COME AND WORSHIP (vv. 1-7)

The psalm opens with a bold call to worship. We’re to sing for joy to the LORD, rendered in small capitals in English Bibles for the Jews’ holiest name for the most high God, “YHWH.” We’re to “shout aloud,” the word indicating loud and enthusiastic responses, like people hailing a beloved monarch. The object of our praise is the “Rock of our salvation,” a term we encountered in David’s Psalm 18. Hundreds of years earlier, Moses used the metaphor “Rock” to refer to God’s stalwart, protective essence (Deuteronomy 32:4, 31). The “come” of verse 2 is a different Hebrew word than that of verse 1. It comes from a root that suggests projecting oneself, deepening the meaning of worship as having an Audience. The behavior before this Audience is, first, “thanksgiving,” from a word for extending the hand, as in praise. Second, we are to “extol” Him with music and song, from a Hebrew word that includes the meaning of “loud shouting.” You get the picture of all-out, hand-waving praise!

The basic reasons for this praise are in verses 3-7. First, God is the “great God, the great King above all [false] gods” (v.3). He is the Creator-God (vv.4-5) of the all the earth and sea. He also made us (v. 6b). Thus He is worthy of another worship posture: bowing down. Finally, He is our redemptive God. “We are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care” (v. 7). His plan from all time was to take care of us, and that care now has the image of His Son’s nail-pierced Hand.
 

IF ONLY! (vv. 7b-9)

The end of verse 7 brings an abrupt change in tone. From all-out praise, it turns to a stern warning based on the failures of the Hebrews during the Exodus wanderings. Linger on the tone of the opening sentence: “Today, if only you would hear his voice.”  In my interaction with grumblers, I think, “If only they would realize how much they’ve been blessed.”  Of course, the finger points back at me for my failures, too. The warning is blunt and harsh: “Do not harden your hearts as you did….” Two examples are given.

*“At Meribah.” Exodus 17:7 records this failure, shortly after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and drowning of Pharaoh’s soldiers (Exodus 14), and provision of miracle manna and quail to eat (Exodus 16). When they set up camp at Rephidim, their water skins were empty, and they were so angry at Moses for leading them there that they considered stoning him. When Moses cried out to God, He told him to strike a rock, and water would come, which it did. But Exodus 17:7 records this negative of the situation: “And he called the place Massah [testing] and Meribah [quarreling] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’” They doubted God’s Person and power!

*“At Massah in the wilderness.”  Numbers 20 tells this story. Continuing their wilderness wanderings, they arrived at Kadesh and once again experienced a water crisis. They quarreled with Moses, blaming him for their predicament. Moses and his brother Aaron went before God, who told Moses to “speak” to a certain rock. God would then cause it to pour out water. Instead, Moses took his now-famous staff and growled, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then he struck the rock twice and water poured out. Moses’ anger, his sin of putting himself on par with God (“must we bring you water”), and disobedience in striking the rock, would have consequences. God told Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” The passage ends, “These were the waters of Meribah [quarreling], where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among them.”

The alternative names of “Massah” and “Meribah” can get confusing, but these were separate incidents over water. That had this in common: unbelief and grumbling. The people didn’t believe that God had a plan and would provide for them.

THEY KNEW BETTER (vv. 9b-11)

“They tried me,” continues verse 9, “though they had seen what I did.” Over and over, God is faithful to us. Even in the greatest problems or sorrows, He never abandons us. We can’t begin to measure His patience, and His care of the emancipated Israelites is a prime illustration. For forty years, in some of the most inhospitable terrain imaginable, He provided food and water. Yet, verse 10 continues, “For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways’” (v. 10).

 IT’S US, TOO

The consequence of failing to trust God was such important theology that the author of Hebrews dipped deeply into Psalm 95 to teach about unbelief. Hebrews 3:7-4:13 quotes the psalm and warns against letting our hearts be hardened:
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. (Hebrews 3:12-14)
The writer of Hebrews sharpened the analogy: because of their grumbling and disbelief, a whole generation of Israelites wouldn’t enter the “rest” (the gift of settling in one place) in Canaan. For us, that “rest” is the salvation rest in Christ and our future eternal “Sabbath rest” in glory. If we harden our hearts, grumbling that God can’t be trusted to take care of us, He is grieved. He gives and gives. But we ignore, and even malign, the Giver when we live in the murkiness of doubts, stubbornness and grumbling.

A thankful spirit rests on the foundation of seeing life as a gift from God. Gratitude is evidenced by:

*Humility, giving up “rights” to God.

*Noticing each day’s little blessings and kindnesses. For some, a “gratitude journal” is helpful.

*Thankfulness, expressed in prayer and as a testimony to others.

*Service to others in the name of Christ.

Grumbling mars our testimony. The apostle Paul sat in a prison as he wrote a letter to the church at Philippi. In that wretched environment, he probably heard his share of grumbling. Yet he kept His eyes on Jesus. Just after a section in which He extolled Christ’s obedience to the cross (Phil. 2:5-11), he admonished, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation” (vv. 14-15).

 

Next time: Psalm 100

Making “Psense” of Psalms-- Psalm 18: Rock

The "rock" above my town, shown during springtime, is called
"Saddlerock" and said to be an old volcanic neck.

Part of a continuing series on selected Psalms.
Hope and doubt warred in my heart as I walked to the college track that muggy summer morning. To ease stress headaches, I’d started jog-walking around the track. In a few weeks, I’d receive a long-sought-for master’s degree in my field. But job applications had yielded nothing. I was physically, emotionally and mentally worn out.  I couldn’t go “home” to transition. My parents’ recent deaths ended that option, and their emptied house, 2,000 miles away, was actively for sale.Then squirrels, flinging from trees to power poles, interrupted my dark thoughts as phrases from Psalm 18 slipped into my mind: “With my God I can scale a wall.” “He enables me to stand on the heights.” Those wall-scaling, height-defying squirrels reminded me of biblical truth that, in the face of a dismal future, God had a track record of helping me. I had to trust Him—and hang on.

Years later, connecting Psalm 18’s historical dots, I realized King David wrote it to reflect on God’s faithfulness during life-threats from Saul, tribal enemies, and his own power-hungry son. Second Samuel, which offers historical context, contains essentially the same psalm in chapter 22.

GOD’S CHARACTER (VV. 1-3)

At 50 verses, Psalm 18 is the fourth longest Psalm. David “sang it to the Lord” (subtitle), and we get to listen in. “I love you,” he begins, then uses seven metaphors to praise God’s attributes. Some connect with David’s needs as a military leader: strength, shield, horn of salvation.  Others relate to David’s years “on the run”: rock (twice in v. 2, also 31, 46), fortress, deliverer, stronghold.  David knew the rocky wastelands well as his protection, hideout, and spy stations. They also symbolize a sure foundation, in contrast to the mire and sand of Psalm 40:2 and Jesus’ “house-building” parable (Matt. 7:25).

 GOD MY DELIVERER (VV. 4-19)

The modern saying, “I’m drowning in troubles,” parallels David’s distress. Then David uses poetic license (a “theophany”) to picture Almighty God rising from His throne and coming down in a celestial battle on behalf of David. This harkens to historical accounts in the Exodus, at Sinai, and during the days of Joshua and the judges. “The Lord was my support,” David declares. “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me” (18:19).

GOD MY SAVIOR (VV. 20-30)

When God orchestrates an answer to a difficult situation, we’re more apt to attribute it to His mercy than say, “I deserved it.” Yet David seems to lean to the “deserved” side as the next section opens: “The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me” (v. 20). Is this the same man whose adultery and conspiracy to murder made national headlines? The next verses point to an explanation: that, as a general principle, when we try to live for God, He blesses us. When we stray from God, we suffer consequences. Yes, David sinned in a big, public way, and suffered through the baby’s death and his own dysfunctional offspring. But he still had a heart after God, and provides an ancient model for the “fresh-start” God offers us: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
 

GOD MY ROCK (VV. 30-36)

In calling God his “rock,” David used the same name as Moses hundreds of years earlier: “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just….for their [the enemies’] rock is not like our Rock” (Deuteronomy 32:4, 31). God is our stalwart, protective Rock through His flawless word (v. 30). That discouraging summer morning, God reminded me to keep trusting Him through my recent reading of Psalm 18:33 (about deer navigating rocky heights), the similar Habakkuk 3:19, and images from Hannah Hurnard’s classic inspirational novel, Hinds Feet in High Places. David also calls God his “shield” or protection (v. 30). God equips us for our battles (v. 34), which in my case included overcoming discouragement and timidity. He strengthens us to go beyond our perceived strengths (bending a bronze-buttressed bow, v. 34), and evens out places that try to trip us up (v. 36).
 

LOOKING BACK TO PRAISE (VV. 37-50)

David then returns to memories of the battles he faced with God’s help, re-telling it from his ground-level perspective. This isn’t a super-charged, chest-beating, brag session of wartime prowess. Instead, David returns to the Rock (v. 46) and declares, “Exalted be God my Savior.”

Verse 49 may have a familiar ring:  “Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD; I will sing praises to your name.” In Romans 15, Paul used four scriptures, including this one, to show that Jesus brought salvation to Gentiles as well as Jews. That’s not the only “New Testament” connection for this psalm. Some Bible teachers see the psalm prophetically tracing the death, resurrection, exaltation, Second Coming, and final glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ. When David wrote, “He [God] shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever” (v. 50), he had no idea those descendants would include the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

But for me, this will always be the “feet like squirrels/deer” psalm. Recalling God’s amazing help in that dismal time (a job offer came just days before I’d become homeless), I can still affirm: God is my Rock. He was, and is, my strength and refuge.

 

Next week: Psalm 19

Easter Sunday Psalm-Drive

Photo: daffodils blooming in my neighbor's yard. I grew up in Puyallup, Wash., famed for its "Daffodil Festival." Besides a daffodil's bright yellow beauty, I love its "trumpet" shape, so appropriate for proclaiming this promise of our own resurrection: "The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed" (1 Cor. 15:52).

In my childhood, when gas wasn’t so expensive, my father enjoyed taking the family on a Sunday afternoon drive. Even on familiar roads, we’d discover a new sight. Occasionally, my husband does the same thing. Our favorite spring route winds through orchards and foothills with astonishing patches of wildflowers.

My repeat journeys through the book of Psalms are something like those drives. I have no idea how many times I’ve read that book. I do know the edges of its pages are well-thumbed, with notes and underlining on every page. Yet I still discover new things.

Often when I come back to a psalm, I remember when it previously connected to a life challenge or event. I personalized Psalm 18 in a time of great anxiety and need. I was 32 at the time and still single. My parents had recently died just six months apart. I’d interrupted my master’s degree studies to return home and settle their affairs and empty their home. While it sat unsold, I returned to graduate school and finished that degree. I was near the end of my personal savings and could not find a job in my field. Going “home” was no longer an option. My parents’ still-empty home was 2,000 miles away. I needed to vacate my college housing by the end of July.


My desperate prayers reminded God of scriptural promises to take care of widows (and single women, like me, I hoped), orphans (my parents were gone) and aliens (I was just a temporary resident of this college town). One morning in my personal devotions I read through Psalm 18. Many verses became prayers: “I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise” (v. 3). “He rescued me because he delighted in me” (v.19). “To the faithful you show yourself faithful” (v. 25).

As I walked to the block-away college track to jog, squirrels cavorted in the old trees along the sidewalk. I thought of verse 33: “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer” (the poetic “hind’s feet” in old translations), referring to the strength and agility of deer in mountainous terrain. This time, however, I adjusted it to the prayer that God would make my feet like the agile feet of squirrels flinging among the branches. I needed His strength and miracle to get through these difficult circumstances.

God did answer my prayers, just in time, that last week of college housing. A failed interview at one large institution opened the door to an interview at a sister company, and a job offer there. Plus, the boss arranged for me to have temporary housing with one of his employees. Because I had no car, she drove out and got me and my few belongings, and took me home with her. For several months, until I could afford to live on my own, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Yet even this was of God, and how He “brought me out into a spacious place” (Psalm 18:19).

Other portions of that psalm reminded me of the awesome power and character of God. But I recently realized how much deeper I could go in understanding it. Bible teacher William MacDonald (1917-2007), in his Believer’s Bible Commentary, said this is really a psalm about Easter and the power that raised Jesus from the dead. Psalm 18:49 is quoted in Romans 15:9 as referring to Christ. MacDonald comments: “Nowhere else in the Bible are we given such a vivid account of the tremendous battle that took place in the unseen world at the time of our Savior’s resurrection.”

May I suggest reading and meditating on Psalm 18 this Easter? Some sections to consider, as broken down by MacDonald:
1-3: Praise to God.
4-6: Christ’s dying.
7-15: Celestial war against evil.
16-19: Victory in the resurrection.
20-30: The raising of the sinless One.
31-42: Christ’s second coming.
43-45: Christ’s reign.
46-50: Closing praise.
For your own closing praise, consider speaking back to God the doxology of Romans 11:33-36 which begins: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"