2 Samuel Chapter 22:1-25

Let's look at the life of David.

Would you consider his life to be completely given to personal devotion and holyness? No, you can't. Not with a Bathsheba thing and having her husband killed and all this. No, you can't say that. But did he have a track record of running to God?

Absolutely. See, when you think about Bathsheba and you think about Uriah and you think about other things, and you go, well, wait a minute, God called this guy a man after his own heart? How can that be? Because David always ran back to God. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee, senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today, Pastor David's teaching through 2 Samuel 22, and we have as our guest in the studio one of David McGee's associate pastors. Welcome, D.A.

Hey, Bob. We want to take just a minute to pray for some cities in our listening audience. In California, we have Bellevue, Sonora, Blythe, Borrego Springs, Burney, Byron, and Caliente. God, we thank you for these cities, and we pray that many will tune in today. We pray if there are some who are sick and going through some battles that you would please heal them, Father. God, we pray that many would put their trust in you today for their eternal salvation. We pray that these cities would get excited about following you, and we pray for these churches and pastors that they would fill up, Lord, that they would apply your Word in their hearts, and that many others will be impacted in these cities through that teaching.

In Jesus' name, amen. Dr. Darrell Bock Amen, brother, and I know that many of our listeners are praying along with you for our listeners throughout the country. Today, as David McGee continues teaching in 2 Samuel, now in chapter 22, what are some of the things that we should look for during the teachings and take away? Dr. Darrell Bock Bob, Pastor Dave reminds us that we're not righteous.

We always make mistakes, but God never does. We should put our trust and be excited about God's righteousness, not with our own. Dr. Darrell Bock Well, let's jump right in as David McGee continues verse-by-verse sharing through 1 Samuel chapter 22. David McGee So we're getting towards the end of 2 Samuel. If you'll turn with me there now, we are in 2 Samuel chapter 22. This chapter is a psalm that was probably written more chronologically towards the middle of 2 Samuel. Now, we discussed this last week because the chapter 21 was also kind of out of a time sequence, a sort of an appendix, if you will, to 2 Samuel. And we are looking at this chapter 22 and it as well is out of sequence with the rest of where it fits into the book. Basically, what we're looking at tonight, you can also find in Psalm 18.

It's almost word for word, the same chapter. So we have here in the book of 2 Samuel, a psalm that's kind of a deposit for us to go through. Now let's understand that David wrote at least, I think 73 had to peak. 73 of the 150 psalms David wrote and he's given, there's a little thing at the top says Psalm of David. He probably wrote more of that, more of them and some of them aren't noted.

So let's jump in here. Chapter 22 verse one, then David spoke to the Lord, the words of the psalm on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. That's kind of interesting the way that's phrased. You read that verse and you go, okay, yeah, yeah. But wait a minute, notice the way it's phrased, delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. Now first glance, you might think, wow, I guess he considered Saul like this arch enemy. No, he says from all his enemies and also from Saul and, and we see, we get a glimpse in the heart of David once again in that, do you realize he never considered Saul as enemy his whole life. He never considered this man who was trying to kill him numerous occasions. He never really considered him his enemy and often referred to him as my King and refused to lay his hand against the man that God had anointed.

Awesome thing. And this whole thing is talking about what all David has been delivered out of and keep in mind, David didn't even realize what all he had been delivered out of. You realize that you don't know what all you've been delivered out of. You won't know until you get to heaven and then you'll look back and you go, Oh my gosh, you, you delivered me then you delivered me from that. Maybe even some things that you prayed for that you thought that you really wanted that God didn't give you. He did not give you for a specific reason.

Why? To deliver you out of something that would have came with that. It's interesting to know, you know, we're closing, getting towards the close of the second Samuel. And I was thinking about this first Samuel chapter two, we have the, uh, song of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, she's praising God, she's worshiping God. So we have that in the beginning and then we go towards the end. And now at the end of the song, we have another song of praise. So it's kind of interesting, you know, at the beginning and at the end, there's these worship songs, if you will. And you think of all the stuff and first and second, you send them all the sin, all the bloodshed, all the tragedies, all the rebellion, all this stuff. And yet holding it all together as praise and praise, praise and praise verse two. And he said, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, the God of my strength and whom I will trust my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior. You save me from violence. So you'll see, I mean, some of the songs that we sing here, you'll see them represented in these lyrics.

Why? Because we've simply taken some of the words and put them in the music. And so David refers actually three times in this chapter, first to God as his rock. One of the things that to note about a rock is, and I'm talking about large rock, it's unmoving. Do you understand? God can be that thing in your life.

That's not moving. That's a constant culture. We'll look at things one way or another. What was in fad 10 years ago is out.

And what's in fad now 10 years, 10 years from now be out. And so there's those shifting sands that you can't really count on, but God is a, is a constant that you can always count on. You may have all kinds of stuff shifting around in your life, your job, God forbid, maybe even your marriage, but God is a constant.

He's unmoving. And it says he is my fortress. How does a fortress do you good when you're inside of it? Can a fortress really do anything if you're outside of the fortress?

No, no. Now this is interesting because you know, when we get into trouble, do you know, we tend to run out of the fortress. You remember all those like cowboy and Indian movies and stuff, and they had the fortresses and stuff and you saw that and are the middle aged things.

They all ran, you know, in the fiefdoms, they all ran into the fortress when there was a threat, right? That's what we should do. But you understand our human tendency is the exact opposite. Then when we hit trouble, I get this visual picture. Can you imagine the enemies coming and somebody within the fortress goes, Oh, the enemy's coming and he's coming and they run out of the fortress. It makes no sense at all.

Does it? That's what we do when we have a trial, when we have a tribulation, when we have a failure, we tend to move out of the fortress. We tend, what's the first thing, if you've ever fallen, what's the first thing you do? You get out of the word of God and right there with it, you get out of fellowship at the church. The very two things that you should run towards when you have a problem or you have a failure. And yet, what do we do in that moment?

We run out of the fortress instead of running into it. May we develop the discipline of running to God. Now, when I was, when I was a young believer, I thought when you messed up or failed or had some situation, I thought, well, you have to wait a certain amount of time, you know, before you can come to God and say, God, I'm sorry. And please forgive me in an attempt to restore my fellowship because I had to feel bad enough for long enough before I could come to God and ask him to forgive me. But as I grew in the Lord, I noticed something that over time, it didn't get easier to come to the Lord over my failing.

As the days went by, it got harder to come back to him to the point now that, you know, as soon as something happens, I blow it, I lose it. I say, you know, I'm like, God, forgive me, please forgive me. Do you understand that's part of the beauty of the Christian life is you can ask Jesus, you can ask him to forgive you anytime, any place, anywhere. How often do you do that? I do it every day. I do it every day.

We all should do it every day. It's you ever heard that joke that, uh, this older guy was talking to this younger guy who's getting ready to get married. And he says, one thing you want to do, son, this has helped my marriage last many years. One thing you don't do before you go to sleep at night, you just go ahead and you look at your wife and you just go ahead and apologize. And he goes, what will I be apologizing for?

And the older man said, she'll know, son, she'll know. So we say, God, please, once again, forgive me. Now there's interesting words here and many of them are self-explanatory, but let me, it says my shield and the horn of my salvation. Keep in mind that the horn, it was on animals for protection.

It was a considered a sport, a source, if you will, of power, protection, safety, comfort. So you'll see that horn of my salvation. You'll see that several times in the Psalms, my stronghold, my refuge, my savior, you saved me from violence. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be back with more in just a moment. But first, if you haven't been to our website at crossthebridge.com yet, what are you waiting for? Go to crossthebridge.com to learn more about how listeners like you are helping get the life-changing truth of God's word to more people through the radio, internet, and mobile technologies. At crossthebridge.com, you can also check out our broadcast schedule, listen to more teaching from Pastor David and sign up for Pastor David's free daily devotional. And there's more there too.

So visit crossthebridge.com today. Now here's Pastor David as he continues sharing verse by verse. Verse four, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised.

So shall I be saved from my enemies. We sing that song. You know, as you read these words, I tell you, David is a, he is an incredible songwriter and I'll go through several verses and read several verses together, but it's not kind of set in the stage. David is an incredible songwriter.

And we look at that and go, wow, he's, he's really gifted. He is really an incredible songwriter. How did he learn to write these songs? Well, let's consider the life of David and we can figure out how he came to be this incredibly gifted songwriter. It was a joke in the music industry that somebody works really hard for 15 or 20 years to become an overnight success. And I think when we see the gifting of David as a songwriter, we're tempted to go, well, God just kind of, you know, flew over him and dropped something to hit him on the head and he became this really gifted songwriter.

No, no, no, no. David became this gifted songwriter as he was out in the fields by himself watching over the family sheep, because he was kind of an outsider, you know, even in his own family to the point that when Samuel came by and said, Hey, you know, I think God's raising up a leader in your family. His father didn't even call him to that meeting. And Samuel had to ask us that is this all of them? Oh no, you know, I got one more, but and through that David became the songwriter. David became the songwriter as he defeated a bear who was after his sheep that he protected and a lion in that battle. David became that songwriter as he looked into the eyes of Goliath and trusted God for his deliverance. And let's not forget as David was on the run from Samuel hiding out from the king he had served so faithfully in those cold, dark caves is another part of his life where God birthed one of the greatest songwriters that will ever live in those cold, dark caves.

So as God delivered him from Goliath, from Saul, from Absalom, from Sheba, that is the way David became the songwriter. And why do I mention that? Because a lot of times in life, we think we can do without the trials. We think we can do without your tribulations.

We think we can do do without anything negative or bums us out or anything like that. Friend, God won't deliver you from those things to deliver you through those things. See if God's power could only like be a part of your life when things were good and things were blessed and all that, then his power is not really that powerful, but his power can deliver you through the toughest time in your life. And because God saved David through these troubles, that's how he came. As you read these words, as you read the words in the book of Psalms, it's just amazing. David has this incredible gift to put the words stuff that we, we can't, that's a gift from God. And it came through not just the blessings of the Lord, but out of some of the troubles that David knew. Verse five, when the waves of death surrounded me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me and the snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God. And he heard my voice from his temple and my cry entered his ears. So again, we see something bad happens. What's David react.

What's his reaction. He goes to God. He goes to God. This is one of the most important things that you can learn as a believer is go to God, go to God, go to God. When things are good, go to God. When things are bad, go to God. When you're living like you should go to God.

When you're not living like you should. It's one of the most important things. I know some people say, well, you know, that's really not the most important thing. The most important thing as a believer, as a follower of Jesus is personal devotion and holiness. It's important. I give you that. I don't think it's nearly as important as what I just shared.

Why is that? Let's look at the life of David. Would you consider his life to be completely given the personal devotion and holiness? No, you can't. Not with a Bathsheba thing and having her husband killed and all this. No, you can't say that. But did he have a track record of running to God?

Absolutely. Whenever he got in trouble, he'd go to God. See, when you think about Bathsheba and you think about your riot and you think about other things and you go, well, wait a minute, God called this guy, a man after his own heart?

How can that be? Because David always ran back to God. And I know a lot of us think, well, personal devotion and holiness, it's important. If that is by far the most important thing in your Christian walk, what happens when you fail? Not if you fail, not if you fail. What happens when you fail and you've not learned to run to God? Well, the very thing that you thought was the most important thing that God was interested more than anything else and you fail, you don't have that anymore. Your personal devotion and holiness just went out the window.

And if that was your solid rock, your stable place, your stable place just left. So we see in David again, again, and again, running to God. He gets in trouble. God, please. He's facing down Goliath. You think he prayed before he fought Goliath? You better believe it.

Develop that. Some people, what I just said, they're still sitting, you're sitting there trying to chew it up and swallow it and you just can't, you can't swallow it. This is what grace is all about. If you begin to only approach God, when you feel like you've earned the right to approach him, how often are you going to come to God?

Not very often. As a matter of fact, think about it. If you only come to God, when you think you've earned his favor through your personal devotion and holiness, you're only going to be coming to God when you're arrogantly prideful because none of us deserve to come to God. And yet he desires a relationship with us.

We see that passage in Isaiah where he says, come let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, there shall be as white as snow. The incredible grace of God. It's just, it's an amazing thing. And I know he's like, well, grace of God, boy, I'll tell you what, you can overemphasize the grace of God.

And I'll tell you what, they're all about greasy grace, just all sliding into heaven. You guys are all about grace, aren't you? I said, yeah, sure. I asked him a question. I said, how much grace do you think sinful men and women need to approach a holy God? A little or a lot?

I'm thinking a lot. So we probably should be talking about it because sooner or later friend, you're going to be desperate for this grace. And if you've got in your mind, in your heart that you only come to God when things are going well and you've earned it and you're doing all the things like you're supposed to be doing, you're going to be running from him during those other times. And I think that's part of the reason that we see this difference in David, that God says he's a man after a mile in heart.

He's a murderer and he's adulterer. How do you fit that in with your personal devotion and holiness? It doesn't fit. So God wanted to shatter that mold in our mind and in our heart for some reason.

Why? Because he knew that over time, that sort of thing just builds arrogance and pride and religious hypocrisy. David learned to run to God. Verse eight, then the earth shook and trembled and the foundations of heaven quaked and were shaken because he was angry and smoke went up from his nostrils and devouring fire from his mouth and coals were kindled by it. He bowed down the heavens also and came down with darkness under his feet. He wrote upon a cherub and flew and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness canopies around him, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. And from the brightness before him, coals of fire were kindled. The Lord thundered from heaven and the most high uttered his voice and he sent out arrows and scattered them, lightning bolts and he vanquished them. Then the channels of the sea were seen and the foundations of the world were uncovered at the rebuke of the Lord at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. He sent from above.

He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me for they were too strong for me. I believe what David is sharing here to me, it sounds like when God was meeting with Moses at Mount Sinai, there's certain aspects that you read it and you go, well, maybe this is about creation. Could be, we don't know exactly, but I believe it's more speaking more about when God was communicating with Moses and with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. If you remember the people said, Hey, we want God to speak to us and God spoke to us.

And then they said, Moses, let God speak to you. We don't want God to speak directly to us anymore because they were so freaked out at the power in his voice. And a lot of times we think we want to hear the audible voice of God. I've never heard the audible voice of God. I've heard the voice of God. I knew it was the voice of God, but I've never heard the audible voice of God. I'm not, I'm not sure in this sinful body that I want to hear the audible voice of God. I think it will just rattle me so much that I'll wait to hear the audible voice of God until I get to heaven.

And I've got my new body that can handle that kind of sensory overload, man. So I believe this is what it's talking about. And then he slips in verse 17 and he's talking about God's deliverance from, uh, of him. Verse 18, he delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He also brought me out of into a broad place. He delivered me because he delighted in me.

That's awesome. Notice verse 18 for they were too strong for me. So we're tempted when we look at the life of David to think that David and he was, he was a warrior. He was a strong warrior, but we're tempted as we look at his life to say, okay, the reason he did so well and he was so blessed as David was a very strong warrior.

No, no, I don't think so. And then we, you know, the David and Goliath story, we say, well, you know, he was just absolutely so skilled with that rock and sling. Now, no doubt he knew his rock and sling.

He had probably, you know, used it a lot when he was out in the fields and stuff, but I think it's much more than that. I think it's God at work because David realized that there were going to be things in his life that he was not strong enough to handle. Friend, do you realize that there are going to be things in your life that you're not strong enough to handle? And if you think that you're strong enough to handle them, you're going to be very disappointed by your reaction and what happens in those situations. Cause you're going to think, wait, wait, wait a minute. I should be strong enough to handle this.

No, there's going to be things. There were things in David's life that he was not strong enough to handle. He says, you know what?

They were too strong for me. And so what did he do? He called upon the name of the Lord. If you are going to think you can go through your life and you can handle everything that comes down the pike in your own streams, you know, what's going to happen. You're going to try to do that. But if you realize that there's some things that are going to come into your life that are just going to overwhelm you, then again, you'll establish that pattern of running to the Lord. How often we have troubles and we think I can handle this. I can deal with this.

And the last thing we do is pray. Why? I got it. I can handle it.

I'm good. You ever heard that joke, pastor's in there. He's meeting with his deacons and elders. And he says, you know what?

And they were discussing a big problem. And pastor says, you know what? We just, we just need to bow our heads and pray. And one of the deacons said, pastor, has it come to that?

Not our deacons and elders. Okay. But a lot of times we think, no, let's we can deal with this. Let's deal with it.

No, no, no. Run to God. I understand he desires a relationship with us. He desires to intervene on our behalf in our, in our lives.

If we ask him, but if we're like, no, no, no, I got it. I got it. I'm okay.

I can do this friend. You're overestimating your abilities. You are overestimating your abilities and God has a way to remind us of our shortcomings and, and our lack of strength in this life. Something will happen. Something will come down the pike and go, wow, I thought I could handle this.

Uh, evidently I can't. And God's like, man, I'm waiting for you to call him my name. I'm wanting to intervene. I'll give you the strength.

I'll take down your strongest foe. And then don't, don't you love that in the midst of this, David's talking about the strength and the power and the lightning and the fire and the smoke and all this stuff. And then look at verse 20. He also brought me out into a broad place.

He delivered me because he delighted in me. One of the things I love about going through the Bible is the way it balances itself out. Cause you come through a passage. I mean, I could have just read this passage about the fire and the smoke and the thunder and the lightening.

And then, you know, yelled at everybody and through things and closed in prayer. But when you're going through the whole Bible, you see this, this passage, it talks about the strength and the power of God. And then you come to this versus he delighted in me and you go, wow, he delighted in me. It seems to be weaving its way into the T you know, we talked about God considers you his poem. You're his joy. You're his love.

You're his friend. And he delights in you. Verse 21, the Lord rewarded me. According to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, he has recompensed me for I have kept the ways of the Lord. And I have not wickedly departed from my God for all his judgments were before me as for his statutes.

I did not depart from them. I was also blameless before him and I kept myself from iniquity. Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his eyes.

And now, you know, while I believe this was written earlier in David's life, cause he wasn't able to say this later on. He said it early saying, Oh, you know, Hey, I'm keeping the ways of God, man. I am, I'm righteous to the bone.

I'm doing everything right. And that's why God is blessing me. You understand that that's what happens a lot of time early in our Christian life. We actually think that we're pulling it off that we're, you know, Oh God, you're blessing me because I'm righteous and I'm sharing my faith.

And I go to church every Sunday and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And then as you grow in the Lord, you don't feel like that anymore. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now.

Dear Jesus. I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, Life Lessons to Consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee.

That sounds good, Pastor D.A., and again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time?

Or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's Home Church, The Bridge in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com, and thank you for listening. We hope you'll join us again next time as we continue studying verse by verse through 2 Samuel.