The Discipline of
Salvation
Psalms 18:1-50;
Hebrews 12:4-13
Jim Davis
The beauty
of the Psalms is that we are
given a perspective of the lives
of the faithful from various
vantage points as they struggle
to live for God. We see
them when they are down and out
and when they are singing songs
of victory. Psalms 17 reveals
the psalmist down and out.
Psalms 18 is a song of praise
about God’s answer to the
psalmist cry for help. In Psalms
17 the psalmist cries:
Psalms 17:1-2
Hear, O LORD, my
righteous plea;
listen to my cry.
Give ear to my
prayer —
it does not rise
from deceitful lips.
2 May my
vindication come from you;
may your eyes see
what is right. NIV
Psalms 17 is a
cry for help as the psalmist
places his faith in God.
Psalms 18 opens with praise for
God’s deliverance.
Psalms 18:1-6
I love you, O
LORD, my strength.
2 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.
3 I call to the
LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved
from my enemies.
4 The cords of
death entangled me;
the torrents of
destruction overwhelmed me.
5 The cords of
the grave coiled around me;
the snares of
death confronted me.
6 In my distress
I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God
for help.
From his temple
he heard my voice;
my cry came
before him, into his ears. NIV
I realize the
writing of Psalms 18 may
actually be a lifetime apart
from when Psalms 17 was written.
Yet, the arrangement of the
psalms reveals to us the outcome
of our faithful struggles.
Truthfully, it may make more
sense that the authorship of
these psalms are years apart.
From my personal experience it
usually takes a decade or so for
me to figure out what God was
doing and is doing in my life.
It is then that true praise
rises from the depths of our
souls as we realize what God has
been doing for us.
The beauty
of the Bible is that we get a
concise snapshot of the lives of
the faithful from beginning to
end. It allows us to
identify with how their faith is
brought to maturity over a
lifetime of struggles.
Jehovah-Jireh was
a name given to God by Abraham
as he came down the mountain
after his ordeal of being asked
by God to offer Isaac as a
sacrifice. Jehovah-Jireh means
"God will provide." God had just
provided a substitute sacrifice
for Isaac. It was approximately
40 years after God called
Abraham out of Ur. It seems that
it took this long for Abraham’s
faith to mature into making this
proclamation of praise. He had
struggled 25 years to understand
God’s promise of a son. He had
made all the missteps of seeking
the promised son on his terms.
Finally when he was blessed with
the promised son he was ask to
offer him as a sacrifice.
God spent 40
years (+ or minus) preparing
Abraham for this big step. It
was a crucial turning point in
his life. It was the place where
Abraham declared his ultimate
trust in God.
Genesis 22:9-14
9 When they
reached the place God had told
him about, Abraham built an
altar there and arranged the
wood on it. He bound his son
Isaac and laid him on the altar,
on top of the wood. 10 Then he
reached out his hand and took
the knife to slay his son. 11
But the angel of the LORD called
out to him from heaven,
"Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he
replied.
12 "Do not lay a
hand on the boy," he said. "Do
not do anything to him. Now I
know that you fear God, because
you have not withheld from me
your son, your only son."
13 Abraham looked
up and there in a thicket he saw
a ram caught by its horns. He
went over and took the ram and
sacrificed it as a burnt
offering instead of his son. 14
So Abraham called that place The
LORD Will Provide. And to this
day it is said, "On the mountain
of the LORD it will be
provided." NIV
On that mountain
is where God revealed himself in
an undeniable way to Abraham and
Isaac. This probably led Abraham
to reflect upon his long journey
from Ur to this mountain. After
waiting twenty five years for
the promised son, then after the
boy becomes of age he is asked
to sacrifice him. Now on this
mountain he understands that God
had been providing for him every
step of the way. It was from
that mountain that the word of
the Lord spread through the
entire world as a result of the
faith of Abraham. On that
mountain is where Jerusalem is
located. It was on that same
mountain that God would offer
his Son for the sins of the
world. As we look to all that
has transpired throughout the
ages on that mountain we also
learn that the Lord Will
Provide. How could God do less
than he asks of Abraham?
A Song of
Deliverance
Psalms 18 is a
song about God’s salvation. It
may have taken a lifetime of
reflection and meditation to
truly understand God’s
deliverance, but this only adds
to the depth of the psalmist’s
praise.
As the psalmist
reflects on his life he realizes
how the cords of death and
destruction engulf him. Now he
realizes God responds to his cry
for help. I have difficulty with
these next verses. The psalmist
has no trouble proclaiming his
righteousness.
Psalms 18:20-24
20 The LORD has
dealt with me according to my
righteousness;
according to the
cleanness of my hands he has
rewarded me.
21 For I have
kept the ways of the LORD;
I have not done
evil by turning from my God.
22 All his laws
are before me;
I have not turned
away from his decrees.
23 I have been
blameless before him
and have kept
myself from sin.
24 The LORD has
rewarded me according to my
righteousness,
according to the
cleanness of my hands in his
sight. NIV.
A passage
such as this makes me wonder how
the writer makes such a bold
claim about his righteousness.
It almost seems as though he had
no difficulty walking in God’s
ways.
Yet, the psalmist
had no problem proclaiming his
sinfulness.
Psalms 38:17-20
7 For I am about
to fall,
and my pain is
ever with me.
18 I confess my
iniquity;
I am troubled by
my sin.
19 Many are those
who are my vigorous enemies;
those who hate me
without reason are numerous.
20 Those who
repay my good with evil
slander me when I
pursue what is good. NIV
God’s
righteousness is real for those
struggling with personal sin.
God’s righteousness is not about
never doing wrong. Righteousness
is about to whom we turn when we
know we have failed. We would
all like to go through life
without the burden of mistakes,
but this is not salvation.
Salvation is about trusting God
to salvage our lives when we
fail or as we fail. Abraham made
bad decisions while waiting
twenty five years for a son. He
chose to have a son on his own
terms. It didn’t seem to faze
God. God simply stepped in and
salvaged the mess he was making
of his life. God kept his
promise and gave Abraham Isaac.
It was David’s
willingness to confess his
iniquity that made him
righteous.
A person confessing sin as they
struggle to stay on the path of
righteousness is righteous. The
trouble with so much of our
failures is that we refuse to
look inward. We refuse to accept
our failures. Refusing to own
our failures is probably our
biggest failure.
More of our lives
are caught up in sin than we can
imagine.
It is amazing how as you get
older you begin to see things in
your past that were not right.
You were completely ignorant and
dumb of those things then. Yet,
God was always there supporting
you despite your ignorance. The
beauty of this today is that I
know Christ’s righteousness
covers all my sin as I struggle
to follow him. It is why I must
come to God through Jesus Christ
(1 John 1:5-2:1-2). I can
approach God’s throne with
boldness in difficult times
although I am troubled over my
iniquity (Hebrews 4:16).
Many psalms
attributed to David may have not
been written by David.
It is believed many were written
and given to David in
recognition of what God was
doing for God’s people. It was a
way of reminding David of God’s
salvation that was sure to come
to the faithful. His trusted
mentors may have given him many
of these psalms as they sought
to encourage David. These psalms
became David’s prized psalms as
he experienced God’s salvation.
Therefore, we refer to them as
psalms of David.
Psalms 18:7-15
7 The earth
trembled and quaked,
and the
foundations of the mountains
shook;
they trembled
because he was angry.
8 Smoke rose from
his nostrils;
consuming fire
came from his mouth,
burning coals
blazed out of it.
9 He parted the
heavens and came down;
dark clouds were
under his feet.
10 He mounted the
cherubim and flew;
he soared on the
wings of the wind.
11 He made
darkness his covering, his
canopy around him —
the dark rain
clouds of the sky.
12 Out of the
brightness of his presence
clouds advanced,
with hailstones
and bolts of lightning.
13 The LORD
thundered from heaven;
the voice of the
Most High resounded.
14 He shot his
arrows and scattered [the
enemies],
great bolts of
lightning and routed them.
15 The valleys of
the sea were exposed
and the
foundations of the earth laid
bare
at your rebuke, O
LORD,
at the blast of
breath from your nostrils. NIV
If you are
familiar with the stories of the
Old Testament, you begin to see
why the psalmist uses such
language.
It is the kind of
salvation Israel has experience
since the crossing of the Red
Sea. It is the same salvation we
can experience today through
Jesus Christ. Imagine such a God
tending to you personally. This
is how the psalmist sees it all
in the midst of his deliverance.
It is no wonder that God is
referred to as the God of our
salvation.
Psalms 18:16-19
16 He reached
down from on high and took hold
of me;
he drew me out of
deep waters.
17 He rescued me
from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who
were too strong for me.
18 They
confronted me in the day of my
disaster,
but the LORD was
my support.
19 He brought me
out into a spacious place;
he rescued me
because he delighted in me. NIV
True praise
results when we stop and mediate
upon what God has been doing in
us, through us and all around us
to salvage our lives.
When the Hebrews
crossed the Red Sea on dry land
they sang as the waters of the
Red Sea receded.
Exodus 15:2
2 The LORD is my
strength and my song;
he has become my
salvation .
He is my God, and
I will praise him,
my father's God,
and I will exalt him. NIV
Their praise
wasn’t an abstract idea about
God—it rose from their
experience of God.
The psalmist
makes it personal as he extols
the faithfulness of God.
Psalms 18:20-29
20 The LORD has
dealt with me according to my
righteousness;
according to the
cleanness of my hands he has
rewarded me.
21 For I have
kept the ways of the LORD;
I have not done
evil by turning from my God.
22 All his laws
are before me;
I have not turned
away from his decrees.
23 I have been
blameless before him
and have kept
myself from sin.
24 The LORD has
rewarded me according to my
righteousness,
according to the
cleanness of my hands in his
sight.
25 To the
faithful you show yourself
faithful,
to the blameless
you show yourself blameless,
26 to the pure
you show yourself pure,
but to the
crooked you show yourself
shrewd.
27 You save the
humble
but bring low
those whose eyes are haughty.
28 You, O LORD,
keep my lamp burning;
my God turns my
darkness into light.
29 With your help
I can advance against a troop;
with my God I can
scale a wall. NIV
In a world where
we live from one fleeting
thought to another it seems as
though we need something more
solid to build our lives upon.
The fact that our thoughts are
so fleeting is an indicator that
deep down we want something more
substantial to shore up our
lives. It is indicative that we
are really in search of
something significant. Yet, it
almost appears as though we are
running from the very thing for
which we are searching. Yet, we
are not running away. We are
simply on a never ending quest
to make sense of life. Sadly we
end up simply chasing our
fleeting thoughts.
David is reminded
that only God can lead this
fleeting world to safety.
Psalms 18:30-36
30 As for God,
his way is perfect;
the word of the
LORD is flawless.
He is a shield
for all who take
refuge in him.
31 For who is God
besides the LORD?
And who is the
Rock except our God?
32 It is God who
arms me with strength
and makes my way
perfect.
33 He makes my
feet like the feet of a deer;
he enables me to
stand on the heights.
34 He trains my
hands for battle;
my arms can bend
a bow of bronze.
35 You give me
your shield of victory,
and your right
hand sustains me;
you stoop down to
make me great.
36 You broaden
the path beneath me,
so that my ankles
do not turn. NIV
David’s praise of
God rises from a heart that has
experienced God’s deliverance in
so many ways.
Despite his sins God delivers.
Many of the enemies he made were
because of his own sin. Yet, his
enemies were never justified in
taking vengeance out on David.
God exalted himself as David’s
savior as he delivered David
from his enemies.
Psalms 18:46-50
46 The LORD
lives! Praise be to my Rock!
Exalted be God my
Savior!
47 He is the God
who avenges me,
who subdues
nations under me,
48 who saves me
from my enemies.
You exalted me
above my foes;
from violent men
you rescued me.
49 Therefore I
will praise you among the
nations, O LORD;
I will sing
praises to your name.
50 He gives his
king great victories;
he shows
unfailing kindness to his
anointed,
to David and his
descendants forever. NIV
God was faithful
to David in good times and bad.
He was there to discipline David
in his adulterous affair with
Bathsheba. David’s discipline
would make most of us question
God’s presence in our lives.
David discipline was David’s
proof of God’s presence. David
always responded with a desire
for God to cleanse him of his
iniquity. We don’t find David
begging God to remove the
discipline—he responds crying:
Psalms 32:3-5
3 When I kept
silent,
my bones wasted
away
through my
groaning all day long.
4 For day and
night
your hand was
heavy upon me;
my strength was
sapped
as in the heat of
summer.
Selah
5 Then I
acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover
up my iniquity.
I said, "I will
confess
my transgressions
to the LORD" —
and you forgave
the guilt of my
sin.
Selah
6 Therefore let
everyone who is godly pray to
you
while you may be
found;
surely when the
mighty waters rise,
they will not
reach him.
7 You are my
hiding place;
you will protect
me from trouble
and surround me
with songs of deliverance. NIV
We may interpret
deliverance as freedom from
troubles.
Deliverance involves God’s
discipline through our troubles.
Salvation is about God allowing
our troubles to discipline us
while he salvages us from our
troubles. God’s discipline is
not always pleasant, but if we
respond correctly to God’s
discipline we will be able to
sing God’s praises.
Psalms 118:17-21
17 I will not die
but live,
and will proclaim
what the LORD has done.
18 The LORD has
chastened me severely,
but he has not
given me over to death.
19 Open for me
the gates of righteousness;
I will enter and
give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the
gate of the LORD
through which the
righteous may enter.
21 I will give
you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become
my salvation. NIV
Isaiah proclaims
God as the God of his salvation
as God was judging his people
for their sin.
He was able to
sing God’s praise in the
difficult times.
Isaiah 12:2-3
Surely God is my
salvation ;
I will trust and
not be afraid.
The LORD, the
LORD, is my strength and my
song;
he has become my
salvation ."
3 With joy you
will draw water
from the wells of
salvation . NIV
Conclusion:
Hebrew writer
finds a message for us in all of
this.
Hebrews 12:4-13
4 In your
struggle against sin, you have
not yet resisted to the point of
shedding your blood. 5 And you
have forgotten that word of
encouragement that addresses you
as sons:
"My son, do not
make light of the Lord's
discipline,
and do not lose
heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the
Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes
everyone he accepts as a son."
7 Endure hardship
as discipline; God is treating
you as sons. For what son is not
disciplined by his father? 8 If
you are not disciplined (and
everyone undergoes discipline),
then you are illegitimate
children and not true sons. 9
Moreover, we have all had human
fathers who disciplined us and
we respected them for it. How
much more should we submit to
the Father of our spirits and
live! 10 Our fathers disciplined
us for a little while as they
thought best; but God
disciplines us for our good,
that we may share in his
holiness. 11 No discipline seems
pleasant at the time, but
painful. Later on, however, it
produces a harvest of
righteousness and peace for
those who have been trained by
it.
12 Therefore,
strengthen your feeble arms and
weak knees. 13 "Make level paths
for your feet," so that the lame
may not be disabled, but rather
healed. NIV
This is the life
God offers to all those who come
to him through Jesus Christ.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 "Come to me,
all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you
rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you
and learn from me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your
souls. 30 For my yoke is easy
and my burden is light." NIV
