2 Samuel Chapter 22:1-28

What happens sometimes is people get trapped in this what I would consider immature Christianity where they're impressed with their own righteousness and then they stop and they live there. And if you're in that phase when I start talking about falling or failing, you're sitting there going, Oh, yeah, you should tell them about that because they're doing it.

They're doing it all around me. Me, I'm okay. I don't fall and don't fail. Praise the Lord because of my righteousness.

We'll be here to catch you and pick you up because it's gonna happen. 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, DA. 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. And I know that many of our listeners are praying along with you for our listeners throughout the country. As we're going through the teaching in 2 Samuel 22, they call this David's Song of Deliverance, and David brings out a lot of good things, and there's a lot of prophecy, a lot of truths in this chapter.

What are some of the takeaways we're going to have from today's teaching? Pastor Dave reminds us today that God's care is constant. He hasn't forgotten about us.

He hasn't misplaced us. He will be faithful to take care of us. And if anybody knows that, it's King David as he's going through all these battles. So let's listen as David McGee continues sharing verse by verse. 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, 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. So some Dave, he probably wrote more of that, more of them, and some of them are noted.

So let's jump in here. Verse 20 chapter 22 verse one. Then David spoke to the Lord, the words of the song on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. 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. 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 setting 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 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, is this all of them?

Oh no, you know, I got one more, but I forget. 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. 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 to personal devotion and holiness? No, you can't. Not with the 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 Uriah and you think about those 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. 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 said, well, grace of God. Boy, I tell you what, you can overemphasize the grace of God. And I 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. Asking 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 an 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. 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 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 rode 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 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 into a broad place. He delivered me because he delighted in me.

Yeah, that's awesome. Notice verse 18 for they were too strong for me. So you were 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 swing. Now, no doubt he knew his rock and swing.

He had probably 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. Because 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 arrogantly think you can go through your life and you can handle everything that comes down the pike in your own strength, 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, well, 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. 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 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 on my name. I'm wanting to intervene. I'll give you the strength.

I'll, 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 because 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 lightning.

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, 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 has blessed 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. As a matter of fact, what we see in the life of the disciples is that as they got closer to Jesus, they realized how messed up and how much they needed him.

Remember there's a couple of times in the life of Jesus where he would do something. And I remember one time he did, he did something and Peter had looked at me instead of saying, Oh, that's so awesome. You're so powerful. You're obviously God and Jesus and the son of the living God.

But Peter looks at him and he goes, depart from me. I am a sinful man. See, you can start to feel good about yourself. And here's one of the best ways to do it. Compare yourself to somebody that's really bad and horrible and evil. And then you can feel pretty good about yourself, can't you? Watch the news.

You watch the news and go, Hey man, I'm doing all right here. I haven't done any of that this year. That's not the comparison. The comparison is between you and Jesus.

And when you start doing that one, it doesn't come out quite so good, does it? There's another one to try when you're feeling like God has blessed you because of your righteousness. Read first Corinthians 13 and where it says, love is patient. Love is kind. Love is never rude.

Put your name in there and see if it works. It's one of the most convicting things you'll ever do in your life. Love.

You know, I don't seek my own. I'm always kind. You go through and you go, Oh, this is horrible.

This just doesn't work. Then go back through and put the name of Jesus in there. Jesus is loving. Jesus is always kind. Jesus never seeks his own and it works. What happens sometimes is people get trapped in this. What I would consider immature Christianity, where they're impressed with their own righteousness and right doing and all this stuff.

And then they stop and they live there and they never realize how desperate they are for God. Why? Because I am doing pretty good now. I got saved. Everything's going well. Now granted, friend, if you're in that phase, God bless you, man.

It's a beautiful thing while at last. And if you're in that phase, when I start, when I start talking about falling or failing, I know what's happening. You're sitting there going, Oh yeah, you should tell them about that cause they're doing it.

They're doing it all around me. Me, I'm okay. I don't fall and don't fail. Praise the Lord. Because of my righteousness. God bless you.

We'll be here to catch you and pick you up cause it's going to happen. That's what we're supposed to be doing. But if you're walking around being impressed with your own righteousness, you realize what else is happening. You're being unimpressed with the righteousness of people around you. Why? Because we have this ability to see what's wrong with other people. Why missing what's wrong with us. That's what Jesus was talking about.

He said, you know what? Remove the sin in your life before you go to help somebody else. Or else you're running around trying to get the splinter out of somebody else's eye while there's a beam sticking out of yours. I thought it was pretty cool. There was a Christian band named itself Plank Eye. That was pretty cool.

Like a plank sticking out of your eye. David was in this phase. It was before he had fallen and messed up and he's being impressed with his righteousness. The life lesson here, only be impressed with God's righteousness, never with your own. If you've been walking for the Lord for very long and you really are sense of the Holy Spirit, you're not impressed with your righteousness, but you can be impressed with him. But as a young believer, when I say a young believer, I've seen people who have been saved three months who are very mature in the Lord.

And I've seen people who've been saved 30 years that I would consider an immature believer. I would love to know how, and there's no real way to do this, but if we could put the Psalms together chronologically, I think it would be very interesting. Like Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. A lot of us think, well, David wrote that as a young man. No, he didn't.

You go back and you read that. He didn't write it as a young shepherd boy. He wrote it as an aging king that was getting ready to die is when he wrote that Psalm.

You can see from what it's saying. Psalm 51 one through three says, have mercy upon me, old God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is always before me. That's an older, wiser David. Psalm 32 one says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. It's a different side.

Now we're going to talk in a few more verses, but it's a different side. John Newton, the guy that wrote Amazing Grace, incredible life story. You know, he was a slave trader running a ship and brought up on the sea by his father and just left it and just spent the rest of his life either as a pastor or telling and teaching. And towards the end of his life, his health began to decline.

He couldn't see, couldn't hear and whatnot. But he said something interesting. He says, my memory is failing, but these two things I know that I am a great center and Christ is a great savior. These are things that we need to always keep in front of us.

I'm a great center. He's a great savior. Just that statement will keep you out of so much trouble, man. Spiritual pride and all kinds of stuff. Verse 26, with the merciful, you shall show yourself merciful and with the blameless man, you will show yourself blameless. With the pure, you will show yourself pure and with the devious, you will show yourself shrewd.

Verse 28, you will save the humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty that you may bring them down. So important to understand this is he's using a device, a technique of contrast. He does this with those.

He does this with them. Do you understand that we get to choose God's disposition towards us? That part of a consequence of our freewill, our decisions that we make towards God alter our perception of God and who he really is to us.

Here's what I mean by that. If you think God is judgmental and harsh and overbearing and unfair and unforgiving, guess how he's going to appear to you. You can read the same Bible that I'm reading and that will be your impression.

And guess what? Because that's your decision and your perspective of God, at the end of this short thing we call life and you've rejected Jesus and you go before him, part of that will be fulfilling. You will see the judgment of God. You will see his harshness.

Why? Because you rejected his son. But you have the freewill to say, God, I throw myself on your mercy. I ask you to forgive me of all of my sins. And at the end of this short thing called life, guess what's going on? Your perception then is God is forgiving, God is merciful, God is loving, God is God.

And what's going to happen at the end of this life? You're going to go before God and you're going to find that God is merciful, God is loving, God is kind, God is forgiving. 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. Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him. And he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. 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 PO Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, DA, 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 DA.

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 livestream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time?

Or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our livestream link. There, you'll experience a live service from Davis 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.