In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses David's actions in praise for God's deliverance. He focuses on 2 Samuel, chapter 22, where David describes how God intervened in his life when he was cornered by Saul. David speaks of a violent storm sent by God that allowed him to escape from his strong enemy. He acknowledges that God delivered him because He delighted in him. The sermon emphasizes the power and providential care of God in David's life and how David acknowledged and praised God for His deliverance.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be following David's actions in praise for God's deliverance As we pick up in 2 Samuel 22, verse 1 And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith 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 of his enemies And out of the hand of Saul This song came early in David's career It is thought that it was spoken by David When he had come to the establishment of the kingdom And had defeated the enemies all around him And now his kingdom is firmly established The King of Toy has sent messages of congratulations And David acknowledged the Lord And God's providential care in this psalm This psalm is identical to Psalm 18 With few variations that can be accounted To just the change of a letter here or there Hebrew letters are quite similar And so as we get into this psalm We will realize that David wrote this psalm Before his sin with Bathsheba For in this psalm he protests his innocence His righteousness, the cleanness of his own life Which he could speak of prior to His relationship with Bathsheba Coming to God on the basis And you find this in many of the earlier psalms of David Asking God to help him as he came to God On the basis of his goodness, his uprightness His innocence and so forth But once he had experienced that sin with Bathsheba From then on he always came seeking the mercy of God As is evident in the 51st psalm The first psalm written after The forgiveness announced by Nathan He said, Have mercy upon me, O God According to the multitude of thy tender mercies Blot out my transgressions For against thee and thee only have I sinned And done this great evil in thy sight That you might be justified in all So David no longer seeks God On the basis of his own goodness But on the basis of God's mercy and graciousness So as we get into the psalm It will speak of David's appreciation for God's deliverance And for the way God intervened in the battles How that the rains, the lightnings Actually came at just the precise moment To set him free And how he recognized God In all of God's works And as God was helping and delivering him And so he said, The Lord is my rock And my fortress And my deliverer The Lord as a rock is a common symbol And as I suggest again That you go through the Bible With a concordance and Study how that the rock has become A symbol for God He is our strength, strong as a rock A place of defense as a rock As in Proverbs, the Koni, the Hydrax Are a feeble folk But they make their home in the rock One of the three small things on the earth That is exceedingly wise Wise because it knows that it has no defense of its own And thus it makes its home in the rock And thus is strong as the rock Upon in which it has made its home So the Lord is my rock, he is my fortress He is my deliverer The God of my rock In him will I trust For he is my shield The horn of my salvation My high tower Which is not a tower made with hands But would be the high places Where David in his wanderings and escaping from Saul Chased like a partridge through the mountain Would sometimes be up on the top of those Lofty peaks And the Lord is my high tower He is my refuge, my savior So notice Rock, fortress, deliverer Shield, horn of salvation High tower, refuge, savior And thou savest me from violence David is surely one of the most articulate persons Who has ever lived Gifted and blessed With the capacity of articulating unto God The praises, the worship, the acknowledgement of all that God is Whenever I am in need of A way of expressing myself to God I feel that limitation I want to express to God praise I want to think about things that God has done for me Or things to give thanks for I turn to the Psalms Because in the Psalms David is Expressing so many things that you just don't think of If you sit down and say well The Lord is good The Lord is good The Lord is, you know But David goes on and just gives you so many things Of the goodness of God to think about And to express And so I find great help in the Psalms As I turn to them and David says The Lord is my rock Oh yeah, he's my rock The Lord is my fortress All right, yes, the Lord has been a fortress He's my deliverer Oh, sure he is, you know And all of these things begin to come to pass And I realize how they have Happened in my own life And I can personalize these things of David But he helps me to express it He helps me to give expression to my own spirit When I read the Psalms As he spoke by the Spirit of God These things in appreciation unto the Lord I will call upon the Lord, David said Because he is all of these things He's my savior, my refuge I will call upon the Lord Who is worthy to be praised And so shall I be saved from my enemies So, David Because God is his refuge, his strength, his fortress He will call upon the Lord And in calling upon the Lord He is delivered, he's saved from the enemies And so when the waves of death Come past me or encompassed me The floods of the ungodly men made me afraid The sorrows of hell Come past me about And the snares of death prevented me In my distress I called upon the Lord And cried to my God And he did hear my voice Out of his temple And my cry did enter into his ears So, David speaks of the times of Being hemmed in And of course there were many times When it seemed like Saul was going to Destroy him, in fact David came to the place of discouragement One day where he said I know that one day Saul's gonna kill me He had seen the hand of God Delivering him in many marvelous ways From the hand of Saul and Though he had been anointed by the spirit of God To be king over Israel He had that lapse of faith The pressure, the constant pressure Began to tell upon him And often times in our lives As we're undergoing constant pressure It begins to finally tell upon us And we get discouraged Though God has helped us As though God has delivered us so many times We begin to think Oh, you know, it can't happen forever I know that one day Saul's gonna kill me, you know And in that discouragement But I will cry upon the Lord When I'm in this distress When I'm encircled by my enemies I'll call upon the Lord In Jeremiah the 29th chapter The Lord said to Jeremiah Call on me In the day of trouble And I will show you Great and mighty things That thou knowest not Now In the whole context That verse comes in a very interesting place Because Jeremiah was in trouble And he had just spent the night in prayer And in the morning After spending the night in prayer In the morning the Lord spoke to Jeremiah And said, call upon me In your day of trouble And I will hear you And show you great and mighty things That thou knowest not And so God's people Have learned to call upon him And find his help and his strength Now David speaks about how God intervened by Many miraculous ways The earth shook and trembled The foundations of heaven moved and shook Because he was angry There went up a smoke out of his nostrils And a fire out of his mouth devoured And coals were kindled by it He's speaking actually of the tremendous thunderstorm And the lightning by which he was delivered from the enemy He bowed the heavens also And came down and darkness was under his feet And he rode upon a cherub and did fly And he was seen upon the wings of the wind And he made darkness pavilions round about him Dark waters and thick clouds of the skies And through the brightness before him Were the coals of fire kindled The Lord thundered from heaven And the Most High uttered his voice And he sent out arrows and scattered them Lightning and disconfited them And the channels of the sea appeared The foundations of the world were discovered At the rebuking of the Lord And at the blast of the breath of his nostrils And he sent from above and he took me And drew me out of many waters And delivered me from my strong enemy And from them that hated me For they were too strong for me God intervened Probably in one of the times when Saul had him cornered Looked like David's had it And God sends this violent Extremely violent storm That David describes in very picturesque speak How that God came and disconfited Saul And all of his men Gave David the opportunity for escape And he drew me out of the many waters He took me and he delivered me from my strong enemy Who was, David acknowledged, too strong for me They prevented me in the day of my calamity But the Lord was my stay He brought me forth also into a large place He delivered me because he delighted in me That is true The Lord delighted in David Even as the Lord delights in you as his child Paul in Romans 8 said If God be for me Who can be against me? It's so important for you to realize That the Lord delights in you The Lord is for you David said, the Lord is on my side I shall not fear what man can do unto me Satan would have you to believe that God was against you Because of your failures Because of your weaknesses But not so God delights in you and God is for you God knows all about you He knew all about David He knew the weaknesses of David And yet the Lord delighted in him And the Lord rewarded me He said, according to my righteousness According to the cleanness of my hands As he recompensed me For I have kept the ways of the Lord And have not wickedly departed from my God For all of his judgments were before me And as for his statutes I did not depart from them I also was upright before him I have kept myself from mine iniquity Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me According to my righteousness According to my cleanness in his eyesight Now this tune changed In time to come As David sinned So completely and miserably In the sight of the Lord And I believe that David after that Had a much better relationship with God Because now he was relating to God On the basis of God's mercy and God's grace Rather than his righteousness Growing up in a church That emphasized A works kind of a relationship with God As I was a child I was taught Never to smoke, never to drink Never to go to dances, never to go to movies And growing up in that environment I was relating to God in a self-righteous way Much as David was relating to God Because he also grew up with the law The statutes And having kept them he looked at himself as righteous Righteous as the result of his works My obedience to the law of God And to the commandments of God And I used to think of myself as righteous Because I could stand up and testify That I've never smoked I've never drank I've never gone to a show I've never gone to a dance And I had all of these negative things Upon which I was premising my righteousness before God And I was approaching God on the basis of the fact that I didn't smoke And I didn't drink And I didn't go to shows and these things And that was the premise for my relationship with God And when I would come to God Seeking God's help or God's blessing Or God's guidance for my life I would come to Him on the basis of Because I deserve it I'm worthy, Lord Look, I've never touched a cigarette in all of my life And thus I'm worthy However There were a lot of things that were not good on the inside I loved revenge I would plot to get even There were those that I could not stand And I would do my best To see them hurt Lot of evil on the inside But this outward show Of righteousness Now I was convicted for the evil on the inside too And thus Relating to God on the basis of my goodness There were many times that I could not relate to God Because I knew that I had not been good I used to get saved every Sunday night And pray like everything that Jesus would come before Monday morning And I would wait from Monday morning to Sunday night to get saved again Because I was aware that Though I outwardly kept these things that There were things within my heart that were not right Thoughts that were not right And thus I had a hard time relating to God Except at the altar call on Sunday night And I would go forward and I would ask God to forgive me my sins And save me from my sins And then I could relate to God on my way home But oh, what a glorious day When I discovered the mercies and the grace of God And I began to relate to God on the basis of what He is And what He has done rather than what I am and what I have done And from that day I've had an unbroken relationship I can relate to God anytime Because I relate to Him now on the basis of His grace towards me And His mercy And I was brought into a much closer relationship with God Through the understanding of God's work towards me Than I ever was in trying to relate to God According to my works for God God is for me God delights in me Not because that I am so good And I don't go to shows or dances and I don't drink and I don't smoke And I didn't watch TV this week Has nothing to do with my relationship with God Or God's delighting in me It's because of His nature of love His love for me is His child His care and concern for me And His marvelous grace Whereby I stand So David here is trying to relate to God by the basis of his works He learned better than that in time to come But you will find in some of the Psalms where David is talking about His innocence, his keeping of the statutes and so forth No, that was in the earlier years Before his great sin And before his coming into The joy really For in Psalm 32 after Nathan said your sin is forgiven David said oh how happy is the man Whose transgressions are forgiven Oh how happy is the man whose sins have been covered Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not Impute iniquity I'm relating to God in a whole new way As a child of God living in the grace of God God does not impute to me iniquity But as I walk in the light As He is in the light I have fellowship with Him as the blood of Jesus Christ Is continually cleansing me From all of my sin You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you With the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again our toll free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience You can order online anytime When you go to thewordfortoday.org And while you're there Be sure to browse through the additional resources That include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs And so much more Once again that's the word for today online At thewordfortoday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write You can use our mailing address Which is The Word for Today P.O. Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters Of this station with your correspondence And now on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues His verse by verse study Through the book of 2 Samuel That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today Now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith God bless you Give you a glorious week May the hand of the Lord Be upon you to anoint you For service unto Him In Jesus' name Now the second resource is entitled The Gifts of the Holy Spirit And consists of 19 messages Covering such subjects as Healing, prophecy and faith Pastor Chuck not only explains How and why the gifts of the Holy Spirit Are available to the church today But he also encourages believers To fully understand the working Of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's life Once again you'll be asking for The person of the Holy Spirit And the gifts of the Holy Spirit For those of you wishing to call Our toll free number is 1-800-272-9673 Once again that's 1-800-272-WORD This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California