The Lord is my Rock and My Fortress - Part 2 (Psalm 18:20-30)

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Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Sermon

Introduction

This evening’s message is a continuation through our series on the book of psalms. We’re currently in Psalm 18 and we’re actually in part 2 of 3 of Psalm 18, so there’s some things that I would like to say to remind you of where we are in the text and I also want to encourage you to come back next week to hear the remaining text as well. So, starting with some reminders of our previous time in Psalm 18 before we dig into our passage for this evening:

Psalm 18:1-19 was our passage from last week, which opens the psalm by telling us of the precise details of why the psalm was written. The superscription tells us that David wrote this psalm after God rescued him from the hands of his enemies, include Saul. This informs us that there was a particular reason for this psalm to be written and it’s simple—it’s a psalm of great praise to the LORD, of thanksgiving, and of celebration.

The first nineteen verses of Psalm 18 focuses on David praising God for God’s character and his help as well as David praising God for defending him and rescuing him. David focuses his attention on the fact that he had prayed for the LORD to save him and the LORD actually did save him—and because God saved him, he’s able to praise the LORD for who God is and for his help. In the latter half of the text from last week, we see David describing God’s saving of him in what would be very terrifying descriptions for people who were David’s enemies and really God’s enemies.

The application for last week was fairly simple—that when life is filled with hardship, run to Jesus for help. And after you run to Jesus for help, praise Jesus for all that he has done (even if he hasn’t answered your prayer yet).

Vss. 20-30 continues in the mindset of praising the LORD for all that he has done, in particular, God’s ability to save David. Let’s read together Psalm 18:20-30 and we’ll dig into Scripture this evening.

Psalm 18:20–30 ESV

20 The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 22 For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. 23 I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. 24 So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. 25 With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; 26 with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. 27 For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down. 28 For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. 29 For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. 30 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into two parts: (1) concerns David and His Righteousness (20-24), we’re going to take a closer look at what David says about himself in these verses and we’re going to combat the false assumption that David is being self-righteous—he’s not self-righteous at all. (2) Vss. 25-30 then shifts our focuses our attention to God and his Work, as David thinks on God’s characteristics and praises God for who he is. As we study through David’s words, it should cause us to reflect on how God deals with us because of his character—and if we’re Christians this evening, it should cause us to well up within us praise and worship for the LORD.

Prayer for Illumination

David and his Righteousness (20-24)

David starts this section of Psalm 18 by reflecting on his righteousness. This isn’t the first time that he has done this in the psalms.

Remember with me that in Psalm 17, which is also a psalm of David, he expresses a prayer to the LORD and he explains that the reason why God should listen to or hear his prayer is because his cause is just and that he is righteous in heart.

Now, when we read what David says in Psalm 18:20-24, it may seem as if he’s being self-righteous—that he’s puffing himself up, but remember that when we worked through Psalm 17, the reason for David making those statements about him being just and righteous in heart wasn’t to puff himself up.

He was making those statements for the purpose of checking his own heart and considering whether he was right to ask for God to do something.

It wasn’t to puff up himself and it wasn’t to be self-righteous, David knows that his righteousness is only through God alone.

Keep that in mind, because while it seems David is being self-righteous in Psalm 18:20-24, remember that David is knowledgeable enough to realize that he has no righteousness within himself.

After all, David is the same psalmist who claims in Psalm 53, that “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good . . . They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

So, why does David make statements like this? That God dealt with him according to his righteousness? That God dealt with him according to the cleanness of his hands; because he has followed God and not acted wickedly?

Because David’s praising God for what God has done for his people.

So, why is he talking about righteousness and cleanness in this manner? Because only those that are God’s people are genuinely righteous and clean.

As David starts this section of the psalm, he’s pointing to the fact that he is a genuine believer in God and it is his belief in God that has made him judicially righteous.

And because he’s been made righteous by God, he can then live in such a way that he is clean—he can “[keep] the ways of the LORD.”

Or in other words, David’s statements in these five verses are praises for God making him righteous, allowing him to live righteously, and then interceding on his behalf because of his righteousness.

Allen Ross, “They simply affirm that because God deals with people as he see their heart to be towards him, the people of God may explain divine intervention through prayer as divine reward for righteousness.” (A Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 1)

We can see it like this, that David is essentially saying, “look at what God has done for me because I believe.”

God cared for him because of his belief in God.

So, when David makes statements like, “The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God,” he isn’t puffing himself up, he’s recognizing that the only reason God helped him was because he genuinely believes.

With that in mind, let me just give a brief digression, in David’s instance, God protected him and saved him as a genuine believe, but that doesn’t mean that God will always rescue people out of dangerous positions based solely on their belief in him.

God never promises us to live lives in which we face no trouble or difficulty. He never promises that we will be able to get out of great trouble if we have enough faith or believe; and that’s definitely not what’s happening here in Psalm 18.

What’s happening in Psalm 18 is this, David is reflecting on God’s rescue of him from his enemies; and he realizes that the only reason that God would’ve rescued him is if he believed.

Or we can say it like James does, “all good gifts come from above.” That’s what David is doing as he reflects here in vss. 20-24.

God dealt with him graciously and he rewarded him because he believed and sought to live in such a way that he would be clean. David says, “all [God’s] rules were before [him], and [God’s] statutes I did not put away from me.”

He knew God’s law and he knew the right way to live according to Scripture

And he followed those rules and statutes because he loved God.

Vss. 23-24 continue in this line of thinking with David saying, “I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.”

And I can’t stress enough, again, that David isn’t saying these things to puff himself up—he’s saying them as a reflection of praise to the LORD for what God has done for him.

He considers what God has done for him in protecting him and rescuing him a reward for his belief—again, like James says, “all good gifts come from above.”

Allen Ross, “After describing his deliverance by the Lord, David explained it in terms of his faith in the Lord his God. By faith David kept his integrity [or righteousness] before God. This deliverance was because God was rewarding David for the cleanness of his hands [or his life]. David attested that he had not turned from God, that he walked in God’s ways, obeyed His laws and decrees, and kept himself from sin. God honored His obedient servant with tremendous victories.” (BKC)

In a way, we could say that David’s thinking about his own righteousness through vss. 20-24 is really more of a reflection and praise for God in that God made him righteous.

It is God who justified him, it is God who enabled him to live with clean hands; it is God who empowered him to live in the ways of the LORD.

It is God who made him blameless through genuine belief from David in God.

God is the hero of the story here, not David. David happens to be the recipient of mercy, grace, and righteousness from God.

David realizes this and praises the LORD, not that he was able to legalistically live a righteous life, but because God made him righteous because of his faith.

And as a reward for his belief, God saved him or rescued him from his enemies (including Saul).

David is not self-righteous in these statements concerning his own righteousness—he knows that he is not righteous apart from God. In reality, David is taking these five verses to reflect on the truth that God’s saving of him from Saul and his enemies was very much a gift from God—something that wasn’t necessarily promised, but something given to David because of his genuine belief in God. This belief or faith that David has in God is a result of his understanding of who God is, which he reflects on in vss. 25-30. Let’s re-read those six verses.

God and His Work (25-30)

Psalm 18:25–30 ESV

25 With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; 26 with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. 27 For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down. 28 For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. 29 For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. 30 This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

David speaks of God first by reflecting on some of God’s characteristics. These characteristics are spread over vss. 25-27 and they describe God in five different ways:

In vs. 25, David gives two attributes or characteristics of God—David says “with the merciful [God shows himself] merciful; with the blameless man [God shows himself] blameless.”

The first concept that God is merciful is actually translated better in other translations—the NASB and NLT translation translates this as “with the faithful You show Yourself faithful.”

With that in mind, the sentence actually makes a little more sense because it isn’t talking about mercy, it’s talking about faithfulness in light of God’s steadfast love.

To those who are faithful to God, God shows himself to be faithful to them.

The second concept that God is blameless references God’s holiness. That he is without fault, without error, and without sin.

In Vs. 26, David gives two more attributes of God. He says, “With the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself you make yourself seem tortuous.”

Now I’m sure you can tell in vs. 26, there’s a positive attribute and what we might consider a negative attribute.

The first attribute, which is the positive attribute that David mentions of God is his purity. Purity and holiness or blamelessness go almost hand-in-hand, but purity has the concept of being free from anything that contaminates.

Pure gold or pure silver has been refined so much that all the dross has been removed. We purify water to remove bacteria that could cause severe illness.

When speaking of a person, the idea is that they are free from sin—and of course, we know that in this lifetime, man can never be completely free from sin, thus, we constantly strive for purity; but for God, God is pure, he is completely free from sin.

The second attribute, which is the negative attribute that David mentions of God is that God is tortuous to those who are crooked.

The idea stands in contrast to God showing himself pure to the purified. What David is essentially saying is that whereas God shows himself faithful, blameless, holy, and pure to those who are seeking him, he acts in justice to those who aren’t seeking him.

He shows himself faithful, blameless, holy, and pure to those who seek them because those who seek them have been made righteous by him (as mentioned in vss. 20-24), but he’s tortuous to those who don’t seek him because they’re still in their wickedness and they are unrighteous.

By being tortuous to them, they should be drawn to repentance, but most of them refuse to ever repent.

Regardless, what David says in vs. 26 is that God is only ever just and everything that God does is just.

In Vs. 27 David makes one more statement about God’s character, but he explains it by speaking of something that God does, “For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.”

Haughtiness is a word that’s utilized to speak of those who exalt themselves wrongly—they lift themselves up, they puff themselves up—they’re proud with a proud look.

The idea that David is presenting in vs. 27 is also utilized by James in James 4:6 “6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”” James continues in that passage to speak of the need to submit to God. Why is submission to God tied together with the idea of being humble?

Because those who are prideful don’t see a need for God; only those who humble themselves will see the need for God.

This is why David flat out says, “You save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.”

Matthew Henry, “The gracious recompence of which David spoke, may generally be expected by those who act from right motives. Hence he speaks comfort to the humble, and terror to the proud; ‘Thou wilt bring down high looks.’” (MH Concise Commentary on the Bible)

Only the humble with come to know God because the proud refuses to believe they need God. Genuine humility will lead people to not just believe, but to depend on God.

And what David states in vs. 27 is a characteristic of God—that he saves those who humble themselves and come to him, but he opposes, he tears down those who our filled with pride.

The idea that David is expressing concerning God in vss. 25-27 is that God is faithful, blameless, and pure. That God convicts the crooked and humbles the proud as part of his character—that’s part of who God is.

Which is telling because remember that this is a psalm of great praise to the LORD for God saving David; and David, in vss. 20-24 makes the claim that God saved him because he believes in God.

And then in vss. 25-27, he gives us a picture of who this God is; who it is that David believes in.

David has faith in God—because God is faithful, he’s blameless, and he’s pure. David believes in God because God convicts the crooked and humbles the proud; David believes because God is just.

That’s how David sees God, which makes complete sense because these are genuinely God’s attributes. This is who God is. And when we reflect on who God it, the proper response is to do what David does—to worship him and praise him.

As David continues reflecting on who God is, it’s only natural to reflect again on what God has done. Vss. 28-29, “For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.”

I think the imagery here is very clear—when David says it’s God who lights his lamp, he’s referring to God as the one who directs his steps.

We might ask, how exactly God does that and I think we really don’t have to look further than the book of psalms itself for that answer—Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Remember, that David had already spoken of following the ways of the LORD earlier in the passage, “For I have kept the ways of the LORD and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me.”

Where would David have learned God’s rules, his statutes, and his way? From the Word of God.

God directs David by lighting his path with his Word.

It’s of note that David contrasts walking with the LORD with not walking with the LORD—when David is following God, God directs his path, God lights David’s lamp, but if David were to not follow God, he’d be in darkness.

It is God who lights the path; otherwise the path isn’t visible it’s complete darkness.

In vs. 29, David speaks with military terms—he’s speaking of a military troop of soldiers and when he speaks of leaping over a wall, it isn’t for fun, its for attacking—he’s not free-running, he’s not doing parkour, he’s leaping over a wall to attack.

The idea that he’s presenting is that God is the one who enabled him to have militaristic victory over Saul and his other enemies.

David didn’t do it himself, God did if for him and through him.

Again, God is the hero of David’s victory against Saul; not David—apart from God, David knew that he couldn’t do anything. Because God is the hero, David knows that God deserves all the praise and all the honor and all the glory.

So, much so, that he makes a bold statement with a striking opening in vs. 30 that ends our text for this evening. This God—his way is perfect.

Which God is David referring to? Work your way back through the text.

Vs. 29, This God is the one who enabled David to have militaristic victory.

Vs. 28, This God is the one who lights David’s lamp and lightens the darkness.

Vss. 25-27, This God is the one who is faithful, blameless, pure; this God is the one who humbles the proud and convicts the crooked.

Vss. 20-24, This God is the one who David believes in, who David seeks to follow, who David lives in light of.

And in vs. 30, David makes this statement concerning this faithful, blameless, pure God who humbles the proud, convicts the crooked, lights the lamp, and enables David’s victory. David says that “this God—his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.”

David speaks of God and he makes it clear God’s way is perfect.

Way in this context carries the idea of the path that one walks—the lifestyle of a person, but David isn’t saying that God’s lifestyle is perfect (though that is technically true), he’s making the statement that the lifestyle of following God is perfect.

But don’t misunderstand that—when we think of perfect, we think of everything being just right—there is no flaw, there is no problem; but that’s not the intent in what David is writing—he is not saying that if your lifestyle is that of someone who follows God, that you won’t have problems in life.

He’s making the argument that the path that leads to God is perfect, even though the life of one who follows God will always be difficult and filled with great ups and downs.

He’s stating that God’s way is perfect and right—or as the NASB translates this verse, God’s way is blameless.

Following this God may not be easy, it may be rather difficult, but the path is right, it is perfect, it is blameless.

David speaks of God and he makes it clear that God’s Word is true—he actually uses the word prove true.

The word carries a connotation of being refined like gold—the idea being that God’s Word, when tested shows its truthfulness.

When questioned, when accused of being wrong, it always proves to be correct. We could say that God’s Word is flawless, without error.

Which makes a lot of sense if you believe that the source of God’s Words is God himself, which we do—”all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

If God is the source for God’s Words, then his Words have to be infallible, they have to be only true, they have to be correct because God himself is truth, he is infallible, and he is correct.

Proverbs 30:5 “5 Every word of God proves true.”

Now, you might ask, “what about those who claim there are errors in Scripture?” Let me take just a few minutes to discuss this issue:

Whenever someone makes that claim, the first thing that you ought to do is ask them to show you the errors—more often than not, they don’t actually know what the supposed errors are or where they’re located. They’ve just heard someone make the claim and so they utilize it for a reason to not believe in God even though they’ve never actually studied the passages out.

If they do by chance have an example, most of the time, their examples can be explained by reading the context of the verses. Usually, the verses don’t actually say what they think they say, thus, you have to get them to read the rest of the text.

On very rare occasions (I can think of two off the top of my head), there are a couple of occasions in which our New Testament text has something that most scholars agree wasn’t supposed to be in the Bible. And like I said, I can think of two off the top of my head, but in those cases, neither of those passages add or subtract anything from our doctrine—they were added by accident by a scribe copying the words of Scripture, but it took a significant amount of time for them to realize that they weren’t supposed to be there—so certain translations, like the KJV, keep those words in the text despite the manuscript evidence proving otherwise. Again though, they don’t add nor do they subtract anything substantial to Christian doctrine.

When you take the time to study out these supposed errors, you actually learn that error isn’t a good word to describe what they are—when it comes to supposed contradictions in the text, they’re just that supposed. When properly studied, they aren’t actually contradictions. When it comes to the rare occasions in which there was a mistake when copying the Bible, those aren’t errors, they’re actually called textual variants and every ancient writing has textual variants. All that it means is that we no longer have the originals and when they were copied by hand, the scribe sometimes copied the words incorrectly.

However, even with the textual variant, we’re completely confident that we have the genuine words of Scripture (just like scholars of antiquity are confident that we have the writings of Plato, Socrates, and Josephus, despite their textual variants).

There aren’t actual errors in Scripture despite what some liberal scholars wish for you to think, because as David says, when God’s Word is tested, it always proves true.

David closes this section with this phrase, “He [being God] is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”

God protects his own people.

He is a shield for anyone who goes to him for safety, security, and protection.

What David has said as he continues in his psalm of praise in vss. 20-30, is that God protected him and God rescued him and saved him from Saul because David had faith in God. David believed in the LORD and sought to live his life in the way that God would have him live. As he reflected on how he lived according to God’s rules, God’s statutes and his laws, he couldn’t help but to focus again on who God is and what God has done through vss. 25-29, which ends this section of the psalm with David pointing out God’s path as perfect, his Word as always true, and his protection as available to those who seek protection in him. In the remaining few minutes, I want us to look at specific application of this text. In order for us to gain as much as we can from this passage, I want to look at application from each section separately before combining them for our final piece of application.

Application

David and his Righteousness (20-24)—in the first five verses I explained how David looks at his own life again and reflects on his belief. I explained that while it might seem like he’s being self-righteous here, the truth is that he isn’t being self-righteous—he knows that the only reason he has righteousness at all is because of his faith in God and that’s what he’s reflecting on in vss. 20-24, that he has been made righteous by God and that he has tried to live according to God’s rules and statutes because God has made him righteous. Our application for this section is actually simple and much of it is focused on the concept of praising God.

Like David, you need to reflect on your own salvation. Because your salvation ought to drive you to do what David does in Psalm 18, it should drive you to praise the LORD.

It’s easy for us to live our lives in such a way that we take for granted what Jesus has done for us on the cross. It is easy for us to continue our lives in such a way that we don’t even consider how big of a deal that it is that Jesus saved us through his sacrificial atonement on the cross. So, let me help you with this for a minute or two.

Our world teaches us that man is generally good—that deep down, even though we make some mistakes, we’re generally good-hearted people. That is the exact opposite of what Scripture teaches us.

God says that the heart of man is deceitfully wicked and desperately sick—that prior to Jesus’ saving work within us, that we were completely dead in our sins and trespasses.

We weren’t generally good people; we were utterly dead and we were deceitfully wicked and desperately sick.

And what the Scriptures emphasize (particularly in telling us the Old Testament Law) is that we cannot possibly obtain favor in God’s sight because of how wicked we were—we were totally depraved in our sins. We weren’t generally good; we were dead, wicked, and sick.

But the Bible teaches us that God because of his great love for us, sent his Son to die on a cross for our sins, that all who would repent from their sins and believe in him, would be saved.

Jesus did what we couldn’t do, he lived that perfect, sinless life and he offered himself a ransom for all who would believe in him.

Think about how amazing this is—he brought you from death to life out of the grave. He gave you new life and he’s making all things new.

It might help for you to consider all that Jesus has saved you out of—consider the way you lived prior to your belief in Jesus. Maybe you were addicted to substances, maybe you were a thief, maybe you were a liar. Maybe you cheated on your spouse, you were addicted to pornography and you allowed your own unrighteous anger to dictate your life.

If you became a believer at a young age, think of what all Jesus has saved you from experiencing—obviously, you still struggled and struggle with sin, but imagine where you might have gone if you weren’t saved at a young age. Maybe you struggled with lying and stealing, but maybe if God hadn’t saved you at a young age, you might have gone further down the road in those sinful behaviors and found yourself in prison.

Jesus has saved you out of your sins, but he didn’t just save you from your sin, he saved you for you to have a relationship with God through Jesus—again, something that you couldn’t do on your own; you’re completely dependent on Jesus for making this possible.

Consider all of this and you can see why David thought it was so important to praise God for making him righteous in God’s sight.

Consider what Jesus has saved you from and what he saves you to and what all he has done for you, don’t you think that what he has done is worthy of your praise?

And your praise for God’s salvation of yourself can start just like his praise did:

The LORD has dealt with me according to the righteousness that Jesus gives me; according to the cleanness of my hands by the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the cross.

Because he has saved me, I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

All his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me.

I was blameless because of Jesus and I kept myself from my guilt.

So the LORD has rewarded me according to the righteousness that Jesus gives me, according to the cleanness of my hands by the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the cross.

In our modern vernacular, you might simply say, “Thank you, Jesus for making me righteous, for cleansing my hands, for giving me a heart of flesh in place of my heart of stone. Help me to live according to your truth, not to earn my salvation, but because you have saved me.”

Our first application for the evening is this, consider the Gospel and your salvation every day—let it compel you and lead you to worship and praise Jesus every day for doing what you simply couldn’t do on your own.

God and His Work (25-30)—in the second section we see David reflect on who God is and what God had done for him. He again can’t help but to praise the LORD, but he does something while speaking of the characteristics of God, he shows us the dependency that he has on the LORD; and the way David depends on God is how we ought to depend on God as well.

Starting with David’s use of God’s attributes—we see David describe God as faithful, holy, and pure—as a God who convicts the unrighteous and humbles the proud.

What David does as he says these things is that he allows God’s attributes to lead him to praise the LORD, which a practice that we ought to employ as well.

When we praise the LORD, we need to be thinking of who God is—God is good, God is holy, he is just, he is righteous, he is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-consuming. He is near us while still be separated from creation.

And as we praise God and we think of who he is, we should allow his attributes to lead us to further praise of him—God because you are good, I give thanks; God because you are holy, I praise you; God because you are just, I give you praise.

Our second application for this evening is this, while you pray and praise the LORD, use God’s attributes to cause you to praise him further.

And lastly, depend on the LORD like David depends on God—just like God was David’s light and the one who enabled him to run his race, so he is for you.

Apart from God, we can do no good thing, but with God, he lights up our path and shows us the way, he enables us to run our course well.

How does he do this? He does this by leading us with his Word and he does this by working within us. He does this by leading us into righteousness.

He does this, when a believer learns to humble themselves and depend on him for everything; which is where David is in his life and where we ought to be in our lives.

Our final application is this, depend on God because this God—his way is perfect; his Word is always true; and he protects his own people.

Put simply, what Psalm 18:20-30 teaches us is this: we have a God that is worthy to praise because (1) he saved us when we couldn’t save ourselves—consider the Gospel and praise him for it; (2) his characteristics are far beyond what we could even imagine—consider who he is and praise him for it; and (3) because his way is perfect, his Word is always true, and he protects his people—so depend on him,

Praise him for saving you, praise him for who he is, and depend on him because he protects his people, his Word is always true, and his way is perfect.

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