Psalm 18 Part 1 David Explores The Great Love Of God For Mankind

 

Psalm 18:1  To the chief Musician, A 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, I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. 

The Jewish people have believed that the headings to a Psalm are part of the inspired scriptures, and this Psalm has one of the longest introductions of them all.

This is a Psalm of David. 

The occasion of this Psalm is when Jehovah delivered David from Saul and all his enemies.

Deliverance in this case pictures the LORD snatching His faithful servant David away from the grasp of wicked men at the last second.

When David saw that he was saved from the hands of his enemies, he was guided by God's Spirit to speak or literally, to sing to God all the words in this Psalm.

The Psalm is longer, having fifty verses so we will use a few posts to explore the truths it contains.

It is a private expression of David's worship to Jehovah that the Spirit of God saw fit to include in the Bible.

We can be blessed by David's words and drawn to the light of the LORD that he wrote of so beautifully, and perhaps the LORD will use this Psalm to give us a fresh zeal for Christ.

David is called a servant of the LORD just as Moses was. 

Though he used the sword and crown as Israel's king, David's lived as a servant of Jehovah as his highest priority in life.

He begins by declaring "I will love thee O LORD, my strength."

David had a vibrant and deep love for God, a love for His mercy and grace so richly showered upon him by the LORD.

Thus, this love of David was his fervent response to the love and mercy God consistently gave to him. 

David's love of God reminds us that we also must respond aright to the love and mercy God gave to us through the suffering, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, David is living out the first commandment of loving God with all his heart, strength, and soul.

Matthew 22:37-40  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38  This is the first and great commandment. 39  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

We cannot love our neighbors as ourselves if we do not first know God, and by knowing His saving work for us, are enabled to love Him and serve Him first.

David acknowledged his own weakness and inability to fight back effectively against his enemies evil schemes.

Jesus taught us the same truth about loving God first, before all others, and then He taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Expressing our love to God for all that He does for us is the first principle of offering acceptable praise and full obedience to Him.

Christ loved us enough to suffer and die and if His saving work in our hearts does not motivate us to love Christ in response, then something is very wrong in our heart.

1 John 4:19  We love him, because he first loved us. 

The apostle John walked with Jesus for 3 1/2 years until the LORD ascended to His Father in heaven.

Fives times in John's gospel, John is described as that "disciple whom Jesus loved" so he is uniquely qualified to speak about his love for Christ.

John reminds us why he loved Jesus so much. It was because Christ first loved imperfect, often unlovable sinners like us.

Romans 5:8  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Paul experienced the all forgiving, all encompassing love of Christ on the road to Damascus when Jesus stopped "Saul" in his tracks and saved him.

Saul, was the intense hater of Christians, persecutor of believers in every place where he could find them.

Saul was blinded by his hate for Christ, fueled by his wrong belief in Judaism, and he poured himself into eradicating the Christian church.

Therefore, after his conversion to Christ on the road to Damascus, Saul who was renamed Paul, knew the love of God for him and he gave all his love to Christ.

What powerful truth about God's love impacted Paul so much?

Learning that God commended His love toward us even while we existed as vile, unclean sinners.

And, by experiencing that love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, like a river overflowing it's banks (See Romans 5:5).

John 3:16-19  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18  He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

God loved all people enough that even while we were all wicked sinners, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world.

Jesus came to fulfill the law for us, and to suffer and die for us.

He came to give eternal life to all who exercise repentant faith in Him.

Those who reject the gospel remain in the darkness of sin and under the condemnation of God's judgment.

Yet, as long as the gospel of Christ is preached in the world, there is still hope for a sinner to repent, trust Christ and be born again!

It is this wonderful, deep and unconditional love of God that David is responding to as he wrote this Psalm as guided by God's Spirit.

May David's words help us take time to reflect upon the love of God for us, to such a degree that we too, love Him with all of our being.

Bob