Book of Psalms - Psa. 18, Vs. 1-3 (07/16/2023)

Well, as you can see, I am scrambling to get ready here.

We had a, we were here 30 minutes early and found out we needed some cilantro.

So I said, well, I'll run to the store. It's just a few minutes up the road. Ran to grab some cilantro.

That store didn't have cilantro. Well, you know, I got so much time, we'll go to the next store.

So I went to the next store. I had so much time. It's always dangerous. They didn't have cilantro.

Is there a cilantro store today? I guess, I don't know. So I, at this point, I'm kind of a little panicked.

I'm like, oh my goodness, I've been gone. I gotta hurry up. Well, there's one more store across the street and it's the

Hispanic store, La Michoacana. I said, they gotta have cilantro.

So I got over there and sure enough, they did. And they also had a very long line because they only have like two cash registers.

Everybody, I think, had cilantro. But I was able to get it and now

I'm back. I'm very sorry we're starting a few minutes late here, but we're on Psalm 18.

Psalm 18. It is, I'm gonna adjust the camera a little bit.

So Psalm 18 is gonna be the longest Psalm that we've done to date out of all the

Psalms. We're just going through them one at a time. It's a study that Brother Bill started us on. And he did

Psalm chapter one and I just took it from there after he decided, hey, Psalm chapter one is enough.

Now I'm gonna go see Jesus. And so he's been with Jesus ever since that Psalm chapter one study.

Man, I wish I could have seen his notes on Psalm chapter two, but we got through it. Now we're all the way up to Psalm 18.

And we have seen a recurring theme throughout. Many of the

Psalms have been David starting from a low point and going to a high point. And we've had a few where he's just at a high, right?

And a couple of them where he seems he's at a low, but it almost never just stays that way.

He ends up at a high point emotionally and spiritually. He uses his prayers to accomplish this.

Well, in Psalm 18, he starts at a high point, right?

And we are not going to get through all of Psalm 18. Most of the Psalms we've done have been six verses, nine verses.

I think the longest before this one was like 12 or 15 verses. This is 50 verses.

So this one's much longer. And I wanna do what

I've done with all the other Psalms where we try to figure out what's going on in David's life when he writes it.

What's going on in David's mind and in his heart when he's writing the Psalm because it just brings out so much more in the

Psalm. And so of these 50 verses, I hope to get through at least verse one.

So we are going to take our time because before we do these 50 verses, we're gonna look at some of the stuff that David's been going through when he writes it.

Now, a lot of the Psalms that we've gone through, there is consensus among the commentary about when

David wrote the Psalm. But there's, to some degree, a little bit of speculation, right?

There's a little bit of, well, we believe he wrote it at this time or dating the texts seem to put it around that time.

Because of the content of what he's saying, it appears it would be around this timeframe in his life.

This one, there is zero doubt about when he wrote the Psalm because it explicitly tells us when

David wrote the Psalm. And so we will go ahead and we'll open with a quick word of prayer and then we'll get right into it.

So Heavenly Father, we thank you for the Psalms. We thank you for David and the fact that he is a man after your own heart.

Lord, help us to imitate that characteristic of David. Help us to be more in love with, falling in love with you.

And Lord, we also ask that you help us to glean something from the Psalms. Here, David is truly masterful at his praise for you.

And we just ask that we become masterful in our own prayer life as well. We love you. It's in your name we ask these things, amen.

Okay, so if you would just turn to Psalm 18 real quick and I'm going to summarize a whole lot of scripture before we get to the

Psalm. But we'll go ahead and just in verse one, we're going to read what's in the brackets in verse one, which is, we're not gonna do the whole verse just yet.

We're just gonna do what's in the brackets because this explicitly tells us when David wrote the Psalm. To the chief musician, the

Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the

Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

And he said, and then it gets into the Psalm, all right? So now we see that this is when he has been delivered from all of his enemies.

That includes Saul, that includes the surrounding areas that were against him, that includes to some degree, some of his own family members, which you're going to see.

In fact, this entire Psalm seems like a copy paste from 2

Samuel. So if you go to, I believe it is 2

Samuel 23. Is it 22?

Thank you, Pop. We'll go 2

Samuel 22. Yep, that's it. You'll see that it even starts out the same.

And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul.

And it literally just goes through and almost word for word is the same scripture.

Almost, there are a few differences. So let's talk about what

David's been through leading up to the deliverance of all of his enemies.

And let's talk about the state of mind he might be in. I want you to imagine for a minute what it would be like to go through what

David went through prior to writing this Psalm. Now, let's scoot way back because some of his enemies are his own family members, right?

And so let's go way back to the start of that for a second.

I'm gonna paraphrase a lot of scripture here, but if you read in the preceding chapters to 2

Samuel 22, I believe starting in chapter 18, maybe, you're gonna see the rebellion of his son,

Absalom. So let's see what brought that on. So David loses a young child, a very young child, a newborn as a result of his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah, her husband.

I want you for a moment to imagine being told by God that your newborn will die because of your sin.

That's pretty rough. And David entreated the

Lord for days, begging him to spare the child. God doesn't do it.

The child dies on the seventh day. How would you feel if you were David?

What do you guys think? Maybe a little bit angry, angry at the

Lord for taking your child, sad, guilty.

What other things might you be feeling? The Lord has told you, you have sinned, therefore your child is going to die because of your sin.

And you have regret, you have sorrow, even repentance.

That's all there, but the Lord does not spare your little boy, that's rough.

Now, the Lord in this instance is doing what he said he would do. So he's being truthful, he's being just, he's being consistent with his word, but that's none of what you would focus on in the moment, is it?

When the child finally dies, David comforts himself thinking, well, at least

I will be reunited with him. And he encourages himself in the

Lord and he continues forward, but guess what? That's not the entire punishment for David's sin.

Because another part of David's punishment is that the sword will never be removed from his house.

So fast forward, welcome, we are in Psalm chapter 18, for those of y 'all just getting here, but we're going to be paraphrasing a whole lot of 2

Samuel chapters like 18 through 21. We might get to the

Psalm, we'll see, because there's a lot going on, but we've just discussed that David sinned and now as a punishment for his sin, he has lost his child, dies on the seventh day, and we were discussing how that might make you feel if you were

David, because the Lord told him that would happen and then the Lord took his child.

So he encourages himself from that, seems to move forward from that, but that's not the entire punishment.

The sword will never be removed from his house. So fast forward, later, Prince Amnon, his oldest and heir to the throne, ends up raping his half -sister.

This is David's daughter, of course. David is furious, but he really doesn't do much about it.

I mean, how do you even go about doing something about it? They're your children and you know that something should probably be done, but the shock of it all.

What would it feel like to you finding out such a terrible thing about your kids? How would you handle it?

Would you even know where to start? What's been done is worthy of death, but it's your child.

So what do you think you'd be feeling in that instance? Torn. Very torn, likely thoughtful of the fact that this could very well be a part of that punishment for my sin.

Tamar's full brother, David's third oldest son, Absalom, wouldn't talk to Amnon after this.

This is his full sister. You know, wouldn't talk to him for years. Ultimately decides to have

Amnon murdered. Think of David. Now your oldest and heir to your throne has been murdered by another one of your children.

This is rough, isn't it? So can you even imagine it?

Can you, like, already this is the worst you would think it could get.

It couldn't possibly get worse than this. Wrong. Absalom flees, but he is ultimately allowed back by his father,

David, and when he comes back, he then works for years to steal away the heart of the nation, and then tries to overthrow his father.

What would that make you feel like? I mean, already, like, you're probably bewildered at everything that's happened.

You lost a child, a newborn child because of your sin. Your oldest goes and violates one of your daughters, and your third oldest decides that the oldest needs to be dead, and takes matters into his own hands, like, and then you're merciful towards that one, bring him back, and now he's going to overthrow you, seeking to kill you himself.

That's a messed up family life. Might be wondering where you went wrong with your kids.

Also might be wondering, like, what if, what if, because it doesn't necessarily tell us that David didn't discipline his kids, or didn't train his kids in certain ways.

It doesn't tell us that explicitly, but we would certainly infer that there was a lack of parenting there, but what if not?

What if it's literally just because it's a part of the punishment for David's sins?

It's gotta be at least crossing his mind, right? Like, probably, yes, thinking, where did

I go wrong with them? How are they so messed up? How are they like this? But also, God did tell me the sword will never be removed from my house.

Maybe it's a combination of both. I would tend to think likely is. He probably thought maybe the sword would not be removed from his own house.

He might not have thought that, right? He might have thought, well, that just means I'm gonna be at war all the time, which to a man of war may not have been that discomforting of a feeling, all right?

So this, it's a good point. Like, he may have thought that the sword not being removed from his house means he's always gonna be at war, but he's been at war since he was a young man.

He is a man of war. That's a lot of killing he's used to.

So it, well, bummer. I guess I won't have peace, but at least it's a life

I'm used to. He's not used to a life of his own children turning against him. So the punishment, probably way more radical than he expected.

One of his most trusted advisors, Ahith, I'm gonna try to say this, Ahithophel, joins

Absalom and all of Absalom's followers.

Now, Absalom has stolen away the heart of the nation, and now he's stealing away

David's closest advisors, his friends. So now

David's people, his friends, and even his own child want him dead.

So he ends up fleeing. David is going all the way back to his younger years in which instead of sitting on the throne, he is running for his life.

Think about that for a second. Like before he got to sit on the throne, he had to run for years, even though he's the rightful king.

Here he is, the rightful king again, and now he's running for his life again.

It reminded me when I read about this, it reminded me of something that Brother Otis used to talk about. He said, there's two timelines.

You have the timeline that we think of, which is just time we know it, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, going by, and that's just constant.

But then you have the timeline of your walk with Jesus, and they kind of run parallel.

He used to say they run parallel, and when you're holding his hand, you're just parallel with that timeline, but as soon as you let go and separate yourself from being filled with the

Holy Spirit, it's like that timeline with Jesus kind of stops, but the other timeline keeps going.

And so what happens is you have all this time that passes and you're not progressing. So when you do finally hold the hand of Jesus, you're back where you started when you let go.

It's like you didn't progress with time, and the way he used to demonstrate it when he would kind of make his hands go like this with the two timelines, he's like, time is still passing for both, but when you finally decide to get back with Jesus, you gotta come back to the point where you let go of his hand to continue that walk in such a way that you're growing again.

And I think it's an interesting concept, but I do believe that one of the things that Brother Myron talks about, that work never, it always works.

Like there's work that you do on work, and then there's work that work does on you. I think that concept somewhat applies in your spiritual walk as well, because you may not be taking ground for the kingdom, but in those times when you are not holding on to God's hand, he's using those times still too.

It's not lost time to God. He's still using that to work on you. And he says he chastises those whom he loves.

So while from our perspective, and I think that's one of the few things that Brother Otis actually taught from man's perspective, from our perspective, we've not made any progress.

If you're truly belonging to God, then you kind of are progressing in a way.

He's progressing you, just not in the way you'd like to progress, if that makes sense. And so here's

David going back to that point where he let go of God's hand. It's like he's regressed from our perspective.

Now he's back on the run. Now he still did have a few faithful followers, and his advisor

Hushai was one of those faithful followers. Hushai was now advising

Absalom, who has chased his father off with all of his people and some of David's advisors.

And so what's interesting is Hushai is advising Absalom, but he's secretly loyal to David. So he's kind of playing the double agent, which is so cool to me.

Like, this is the stuff movies are made of, right? So what happens ultimately is

Ahithophel, he decides to ask

Absalom for 12 ,000 men to go and pursue David and to kill

David and bring back all of his followers so that they can follow Absalom. Absalom kind of likes this plan, but he runs the plan by Hushai, who's secretly loyal to David.

And Hushai says, that'll never work. If you want to be the ruler, you're gonna have to be the man like David was.

Essentially, it was what he says. Like, David was the man. He's the guy that went out to war, so you're gonna have to go out to war with him and go take him yourself.

And don't just take David and try to steal his followers. Overthrow all of them and kill them all.

Sounds like he's not loyal to David, but he also knows that this is gonna give David the upper hand because now his enemy is coming out to the open, coming to him.

Well, Absalom, pride in his heart, decides that's a better plan. Let's really overthrow dad.

And he takes the bait. Hushai has now convinced Absalom to go out to war with a man who has dedicated his entire life to war.

This is not going to work well for Absalom. Ahithophel realizes, I've been outsmarted, and he goes home, gets his house and affairs in order, and hangs himself.

He's like, that's never gonna work. And so he's calling it quits already. So Absalom goes out to war with David.

David splits his army into three companies led by his generals. He instructs his army to deal gently with his son.

And everyone hears this command. They battle. There are over 24 ,000 people who die that day.

Why? Because David sinned. Why is he even in this situation?

Because of his sin. He's still being punished again by the

Lord. And that's really something to think about. Because when we sin, we sometimes think we're hurting only ourselves.

Right? Secret sin. It's this is, you know, I'm gonna have to pay for this someday, or I'm gonna have to answer to God for this.

I'm glad he's got grace for me and mercy for me. What we don't realize is sometimes our sin affects other people, even when we didn't think it would.

He didn't think it was going to affect this many people. I promise you, he didn't think 24 ,000 men would die in a single day because of lust in his heart.

Wow. He couldn't be more wrong.

So Absalom is riding his horse in this battle. His hair gets caught in a tree, and he's left hanging there by his hair.

One of David's men sees this and tells Joab, which is one of David's generals, and Joab asks, why didn't you kill him on the spot?

Paraphrasing, that is not King James Version. But essentially, that's what he's saying. Why did you not kill him on the spot?

I would have rewarded you. And the man says, I heard the king's command. I'm not messing around with the king no matter how rich you make me.

It's essentially what he says. I'm not going to do that. So Joab takes out three darts and stabs

Absalom in the heart. And then 10 of Joab's armor bearers surround

Absalom after he's been stabbed in the heart with three arrows or three darts, it calls it.

And they continue to smite him. They take his body, they throw it in a pit and pile a very great heap of stones upon him.

David's lost another son. He wanted them to deal gently with him.

This time, it's way more bitter because this son has died in the act of rebellion to David and to God.

Didn't see that one coming, did he? David's devastated to the point of he's pretty much lost all composure.

2 Samuel 18, verse 33 says, "'And the king was much moved "'and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.

"'And as he went, thus he said, "'O my son Absalom.'" My son, my son

Absalom. Would God, I had died for thee.

O Absalom, my son, my son. I can't even imagine the amount of torment he must feel.

Sorry. How would you feel?

How would that feel to you? To feel as though you have a child that has died as an enemy of God.

The next verse is the first verse in chapter 19. And it was told,

Joab, "'Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. "'And the victory that day was turned into mourning "'unto all the people.

"'For the people heard say that that day "'how the king was grieved for his son. "'And the people got them by stealth that day into the city "'as people being ashamed, "'steal away when they flee in battle.'"

They won the battle. They're fleeing as if they've lost the battle. But the king covered his face and the king cried with a loud voice.

Oh, my son, Absalom. Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. And Joab came into the house to the king.

Just imagine like this guy is not being consoled. Like he is still just weeping and grieving for his son.

And Joab comes in, came into the house to the king and said, "'Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, "'which this day have saved thy life "'and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters "'and the lives of thy wives "'and the lives of thy concubines, "'in that thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy friends.

"'For thou has declared this day "'that thou regardest neither princes nor servants.

"'For this day I perceive that if Absalom had lived "'and all we had died this day, "'then it had pleased thee well.'"

In other words, you'd be a lot happier if all of your loyal subjects had died and that traitorous son of yours had lived.

What a way to talk to your king. Then he doesn't just talk to him like that and kind of reprimand him for mourning the loss of his child.

He then commands the king. He says, "'Now therefore arise, "'go forth and speak comfortably unto thy servants.

"'For I swear by the Lord, "'if thou go not forth, "'there will not tarry one with thee this night, "'and that will be the worse unto thee "'than all the evil that befell thee "'from thy youth until now.'"

If you don't go fix this, it's gonna be worse for you now than all of the evil you've endured your whole life since you were a kid.

Whoa. Now, keep in mind, Joab truly loves

David. Joab has been very faithful to David through the best of times and the worst of times.

So this is coming from a place of love, but it's also seemingly a pretty large overstep.

I asked you at the beginning of this, consider yourself in David's shoes. How are you feeling when that happens?

The next verse is, I don't know. Nah, but how are you feeling?

Small, undone. Small, undone. Maybe a little bit angry at Joab.

Like that, okay, I get it, you're right, but he's my kid, and he died against God.

I think there's no doubt that David would've had all those emotions, perhaps, frankly, so in a human sense.

But I also think that Joab's bluntness here, and even his actions, are maybe a good kind of Old Testament equivalent of what

Jesus said when he said, render to Caesars God, who's God's, and it's the concept of I ordain

Go, you obey it, to a point. And David gave his command to shew gentle with my son, but Joab knew that that's indirect defiance of God's moral law.

He knew what Esau deserved. Rightly so, and if he didn't do that, there was gonna be tyranny that would've been out of control forever, and so Joab had no problem defying not only one of his closest friends, but the king's order, in doing what was righteous in God's eyes, which was capital punishment, essentially.

And then he even had the courage to go to his weeping king, and not only put him in his place for the emotions he was displaying, but also gave him a command to go out and to reverse the messaging, which was the message you're sending is you care more about this tyrant than any of the rest of your servants, wives, concubines, et cetera, so you've got to go out there and reverse that now, or like I said, you'll have nobody and you'll be worse off than you ever have been before.

So there's no doubt what Joab is doing is the right thing to do. He is, like you correctly said, he's answering to God above and beyond answering to government in this scenario.

And he's doing it out of a love for the government that God has established over him. He's doing it for David's own sake.

So he's definitely got a righteous anger about him. That's right,

I'm not asking you to put yourself in Joab's shoes, I'm asking you to put yourself in David's shoes, because that's what really brings out what's so incredible about the

Psalm, as we're about to see. Let me read, like Pop said, let's read what

David did next. Then the king arose and sat in the gate, and they told unto all the people saying, behold, the king doth sit in the gate.

And all the people came before the king, for Israel had fled every man to his tent. So David does what

Joab instructs him to do. Couldn't have been easy. Probably, I would think the hardest getting back up and continuing in his assignment than any other time in his life.

And that's the thing, is that we all have an assignment from the Lord, and we all mess up, and we all sin, we all fall short, and then we feel regret, we feel guilt.

Sometimes we feel like the Lord couldn't possibly love me, and we're reminded that we still have that duty.

And so then, what Satan likes to do, is he likes to shake your confidence in your ability to fulfill that duty, because of the sin that you've displayed.

Surely that kind of stuff has happened, and in fact, if you read through, you'll find out, David doesn't just go sit on the throne and say,

I'm king. Like, there's a lot of diplomatic talks that go on to make sure that he can come back and sit on that throne.

And, man, there's a lot that goes on for David there, just ascending back to the throne.

It's not just this easy thing. Yes, ma 'am. With authority after such humiliation.

Oh yeah, without a doubt. Difficult to come back with authority without such humiliation. But remember,

David's authority is not rooted in David. And he may need to be reminded of that, too.

His authority is rooted in God, which he has said in prior Psalms, right? That's a really good point,

Mimi. So, Absalom's dead, and he heeds the advice of his trusted servant.

It takes humility, it takes willingness to go on, maybe a sense of duty for him to get back up and not give up and not wallow in self -pity.

So the rest of that chapter includes all the drama David had to endure in being brought back in as king.

He has a lot of diplomatic conversations, and keep in mind, David is getting older. Now that he's back, he's dealing with drama while retaking the throne.

And then, another revolt. This time by one of Satan's own.

It describes this man as a man of Belial named Sheba. I'm gonna skip a lot here and just paraphrase.

He ends up getting beheaded. Maybe the woes are finally over, right? Wrong. Next chapter.

Moreover, the Philistines had yet war again with Israel. That's verse 15 in 2

Samuel chapter 21. Verse 18, it says, and it came to pass after this that there was again a battle with the

Philistines at Gob. Verse 19, and there was again a battle in Gob with the

Philistines. Verse 20, and there was yet a battle in Gath.

This is a lot of war and devastation all because of a sin.

Imagine being told by God, you're gonna get punished. And it being this bad.

Wow. And when he defied

Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimei, the brother of David, slew him.

These four were born to the giant in Gath and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.

That's verse 22. Paraphrased and skipped a lot for you guys. I think you get the point. It is after all these events that the

Lord finally gave David peace from his enemies. And that's when

David writes this 18th Psalm. And how's it start?

I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. After all that, think of the resolve for him to say,

I will love God. He has taken my son at a very young age.

He's taken my oldest son. He's had terrible things happen between my son and my daughter.

He's had another one of my sons kill my oldest son. He's had that same son revolt against me, steal away the heart of my people, the heart of my friends.

God has ordained that that son would die in battle. Against my wishes.

And that there would be additional revolts, additional diplomatic talks and drama and everything.

God ordained all of that because I sinned. He told me he would, he did.

And it was way worse than I expected. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.

Without that strength, there is no way you survive all that. So the fact that David can recognize that there is strength from the

Lord to endure all of that punishment from the Lord is incredible.

Verse two, 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.

Calls him my rock. A rock, the word for rock means crag or cliff, a stronghold of Jehovah.

David is attributing strength to God. His strength comes from the

Lord. My fortress, now the word for fortress means net or fastness, a stronghold.

There's this idea of a surrounding, it's not just a strong thing, it's a strong thing that surrounds, like a net catching something or a fortress enclosing something.

It's got walls, it surrounds. So David attributes almost like the omnipresence of the

Lord, he attributes surrounding. He's not just receiving strength from the

Lord, he's surrounded by the Lord. He calls him his deliverer.

The word for deliverer means to bring safety, to cause, to escape, like a superhero almost, right?

Someone who comes in and saves you. He is attributing salvation.

His salvation comes from the Lord because the Lord is his savior, his deliverer.

He calls him my God. The word there means strength, power, the mighty one.

As if David is attributing God as being singular, like the only one there is.

He's recognizing God's sovereignty is what he's doing. The Lord is the mighty one.

Then he calls him his strength. And the word for strength there is a little bit different than the word for rock, though it means rock where I seek refuge.

In other words, there is a strong shelter there. It covers him, it doesn't just surround him, there's a covering of this strength.

Calls him his buckler. And y 'all remember we've used the word buckler in some prior psalms.

It's like a shield, but it's almost like a force field, right, like a shield that surrounds, which goes so beautifully with the idea of surrounding a surrounding fortress or a strength that covers.

He calls him his buckler or a shield. So God is, or so David is attributing safety to the

Lord. He is safe. Can you imagine feeling like you are safe after all of that, after enduring all of that?

Because the only way you feel safe after enduring all that is to recognize that it comes at the hand of the

Lord and that the Lord also loves you, right? So if all of that is happening and you can still recognize that the

Lord loves you, then whatever bad happens to you, it's not happening to you, it's happening for you.

And so David is recognizing that I am safe. My life hasn't been threatened to a point where I died.

Many people wanted to threaten me, but that's because the Lord ordained that they would, but he's also still on my side.

So to say that he is safe after enduring so much war, so much betrayal from the closest of friends and family, that's pretty powerful.

He is shielded from the world, even though God is using the world to punish him.

Calls him his horn of salvation. And that's a really interesting phrase because you think it sounds like, well, he's attributing salvation to the

Lord. In a sense he is, but when you look up what horn of salvation actually is, it is the royal saving power of a king.

That's how horn of salvation is often used. It's a royal saving power.

So think of it like this, like when you are doomed to execution, the horn of salvation is your only hope.

If the king is the one who stays that execution and says, I have the saving power,

I have the power to save you from the worst of fates. So not only is

God his savior, he is his savior because he possesses the horn of salvation.

He possesses a saving power. So that there's a little, a different flavor or flair to that phrase he's using there because it could be misconstrued as the same thing as deliverer, but it's actually a little bit different because it is the thing that makes

God the deliverer. It's the fact that he has that power. So he is not only the one who saves, but he is the one who saves because he possesses that saving power.

And then this last one, high tower, like that Maddie's in here for this because her name means high tower.

And it means a place of refuge, which is similar to what we read about the rock,

I believe it was, or no, the, was it the rock? It might've been the rock or fortress, right?

So it's similar to that, but there's a key difference because in time of Rome, they have this thing called a tower and it was a very high tower.

In fact, it was called a siege tower. And it was used during these times. And it is a place of refuge for those who go to war, but it's more than that because a siege tower, while it protects, it also is used to gain ground.

It is also used to besiege a castle. It's giant, giant tower.

You got these wheels on the bottom. They fill it full of soldiers and then they advance it towards a stronghold.

And the high tower is blocking all of the arrows and things that are being thrown at these soldiers because they're all safely inside.

And then the high tower opens and they can storm the castle. So it is a place of refuge, but it's cooler than that because it's actually an offensive weapon.

It's not just defense, it's offense. And so it's described online as being a specialized siege engine constructed to protect assailants and ladders while approaching the defensive walls of a fortification.

The tower was often rectangular with four wheels and its height roughly equal to that of the wall or sometimes higher to allow archers to stand on top of the tower and shoot arrows into the fortification.

Because the towers were wooden and thus flammable, they had to have some non -flammable covering of iron or fresh animal skins.

So it was a really advanced piece of weaponry. It's a weapon of war that was designed not just to protect from projectiles, but also from fire.

David against Absalon. The boy has the high ground.

He has the advantage, he has the stronghold. But because of God's work in the situation through David's faithful allies, and because God ordained that David should prevail,

Absalon found himself besieged by a man who defensively attacks for the win.

It's high tower, you see? David is not advancing on Absalon.

In fact, Absalon is advancing on David, and yet David is protected in a high tower by the

Lord and is able to go to the war and battle. His men basically forced

David to stay behind for the battle but they are proxy for David.

And they are protected under the protection of the Lord in that battle because of David, because God still loved

David. David recognizes that. And so we'll finish it up here with verse three in Psalm chapter 18.

I will call upon the Lord. There's that resolve still. He's still going to tell himself what he's gonna do.

David's a master of self -talk, right? Like, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless his holy name, right? Why art thou disquieted, O my soul? Or why art thou downcast,

O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God. He often talks to himself. Here, he's basically proclaiming to himself and to others what he's going to do.

I will love thee. First, he talks to the Lord. I will love thee, O my

Lord, in my strength. I will call upon the Lord. So now he's talking about the

Lord in third person. So now he's proclaiming to everyone else. I'm gonna call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, that same one who punished me through all of that.

And it's a great hymn. We've sung this my whole life. I will call upon the

Lord. You know that one? Who is worthy to be praised? It's from this verse. So shall

I be saved from mine enemies. And he was. Even the ones he didn't want to consider his enemies, his own children.

So that's only three verses for Psalm chapter 18. But it gives us a start.

And we got 50 verses total to get through. I hope you got something good out of that. We have the background to Psalm chapter 18.

And so we will continue this next week. We'll see what else

David has for us and the Lord has for us in this Psalm. It's truly amazing the way he starts it out considering he wrote it on the heels of all of that trouble.

Really amazing. So anyway, does anybody else have something else you wanna say before we dismiss?

All right, well, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love you. We thank you that you love us.

And we know that when you chastise us, it is for our own good. Please help us to react as David reacts here.

And when we don't react properly, help there to be people like Joab in our lives who help us to get us back on track.

And to lovingly reprimand us like Joab did.

Thank you for the role Joab plays in David's life. It's truly amazing what bravery he must've had to have to do that.

And Father, we thank you that David is humble enough to listen and to recognize when he's wrong and he just needed help.

And we thank you that you helped him through others. Help us as well and help us to be very mindful of our walk with you.

Help us to not fall victim or I say it's victim, but we're responsible for it as well.

Help us not fall to temptation. Help us to overcome it because the consequences are far worse than we could ever imagine.

And we thank you that you took the worst of all consequences and that you place that on your son,

Jesus. Because even as bad as this got for David, he didn't have to endure the worst of consequences because of the finished work of Christ.

So we thank you for that. Lord, we love you. We thank you for this Sunday. And we can't wait to see what you do for us this week.