There we go, Psalms 18. Again,
Psalms 18, this Lord's Day morning. Psalms 18 at the heading it says,
to the chief musician, a psalm of David, the servant of the
Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this psalm in the
day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies
and from the hand of Saul. And this, you can find this reading,
is almost exactly the same in 2 Samuel chapter 22 is where
this is coming from. Let's look at just the first
six verses and then another few verses and another few verses
and then we'll get to our text. Let's look at verses 1 through
6. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock
and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom
I will trust, my buckler, the horn of my salvation. and my
high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who
is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine
enemies. The sorrows of death compassed
me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows
of hell compassed me about. The snares of death prevented
me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried unto
my God. He heard my voice out of his
temple, And my cry came before him, even unto his ears. Verses 16, 17, and 18. He sent from above, he took me,
he drew me out of many waters. He, that is God, delivered me
from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me, for they
were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day
of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. Verse 29, 30, and
31. For by thee have I run through
a troop, and by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, his
way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried.
He is a buckler to all those who trust in him. For who is
God? Save the Lord. Or who is a rock? Save our God. Verse 35 and 36. Thou hast also given me the shield
of Thy salvation, and Thy right hand hath holden me up, and Thy
gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast enlarged my steps under
me, that my feet do not slip." And then I'm going to read the
last verse in this chapter. Great deliverance giveth He to
His King, and showeth mercy to His anointed, to David, and to
his seed forevermore. So this passage is obviously,
like all scriptures, it's for the believer, it's for the king,
it's for David. And obviously some of these passages
I read speak of Christ in his turmoil and his agony. Because
all scriptures, all scriptures point to Christ. And Christ rebuked
those who said, you know, in them, in the scriptures, you
think you have eternal life, but they are they which testify
of me. But what I was interested in is specifically verse 35 in
the last phrase. Thy gentleness, God's gentleness,
hath made me great. That's as it applied to David,
as it applied to the believer. And certainly this applies to
Christ, but we're going to look at it specifically, our King James
Bible that says, thy gentleness hath made me great. And that
word great, it has made me to increase, it's enlarged me, thy
gentleness. But just perusing like we did
this psalm, and given its situation under which it was written, the
distress, the trial, and the hardships at the hands of Saul
to David, I would say yes and amen to God's gentleness delivering
his servant from evil. Such is the case scriptural-wide. Everywhere in this book, God's
dear children, when they are buffeted by Satan, when they
are buffeted by the world, and even our own flesh, we flee to
Christ And he hears our cry. He hears our cry. And was not Christ delivered
as well at the hands of sinful men? He lifted up his voice and
he cried and the Lord heard him. Blessed be God because He heard
him, He hears us through our mediator. So as I said, in the
King James Bible, this last section in verse 35 says, Thy gentleness
hath made me great. Now this particular verse has
several renditions. And as far as the wording and
the word usage, we're going to look at some of these. The first
thought is, Condescension hath made me great. That's with the
amplified version. What does yours say, Nathan?
Which verse? Verse 18, the last phrase, thy
gentleness. Does it say thy gentleness? No, it says they confronted me
in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was
my support. Okay. Psalms 18, 35. This word,
gentleness, has many renditions and word usages. But the first
one that we're going to look at is, Thy condensation hath
made me great. That's what the amplified version.
I didn't bring it with me, but I looked it up last night. And
our great God, has He not condescended to become our very nature? Thy condensation. Thy condescension. I get it right here. Thy condescension. hath enlarged me, hath increased
me. Our God became incarnate in the
flesh. God made like unto us, accepting
sin. Well, His other name is Emmanuel,
which means God with us. And of course, God the Holy Spirit,
God in us. So this version, another rendering
of this, the word gentleness, which we're going to specifically
look at, could be condescension, is correct. It's not resting
the scripture, but rather it gives God in Christ all the glory
for making us, through his humiliation, that's another rendition, making
us increase, enlarging us. God as it were, in my own language,
became small. What do you mean? Well, what
do you mean God became flesh? How do you explain that? His
ways are not my ways. I believe it. He had to become
flesh in our blood. He had to live a perfect life.
The law was against us. We were against us. Satan was
against us. God's justice and wrath is against
us. He had to step in. He became
small. So we would be enlarged as a
marginal reading is becoming great. Secondly, another rendition
of it is thy clemency hath made us, hath made us great. That
is clemency, mercy, or help as it is rendered in another section.
For we, we're like David. We had meager and humble beginnings,
born in trespasses and sins, but David was a shepherd boy.
He's out minding his own business. And perhaps this came to mind,
I don't know, he's being tried and persecuted by enemies and
particularly by Saul. God's clemency, His mercy has
helped David. And perhaps he remembered when
he was a shepherd boy. Raised to King of Israel. Raised
by sovereign, free, mercy, unasked for, unmerited, and perhaps even
unwanted. He was out tending sheep. He
wasn't seeking God. He wasn't seeking the call like
no people do. Oh, I would have been seeking
Christ since I was a little kid. Well, I disagree. We all have
this humble beginning. But God's gentleness, His clemency,
His mercy, Just like David, Samuel said, this guy, boy, he looks
good. He's got to be the Lord's anointed. God says, I don't judge
like you do. I look at the heart. He says,
do you have anybody else? He went through, what, six of
them? Boom, tick. And then there's, you got any
others? Yeah, there's one, but he's ruddy. He's just nothing.
Bring him in. Bring him in. By the call of
divine grace, he was brought thither. The Scripture says we were raised
from the dunghill. And as Bunyan would say, from the dunghill
to the celestial city. His clemency hath made us enlarged
and made us great. Thirdly, this rendering, I like
this one, is Thy providence, says one of the older writers.
Thy providence hath made us great. And we know, as do all who truly
name the name of Christ, all things work together for good
to them who love God and are the called according to His purpose. All things in time, all things
in providence, all things in trial, all things in distress,
all things in peril, famine, nakedness, as scripture says,
in a time of light, in a time of darkness, He is the sum and
substance of all our enlargements. And we are as safe as safe can
be in him. Thy gentleness, thy providence
hath made us great. Fourthly, another rendition is
thy goodwill hath made me great. Thy goodwill hath made you great.
And I ask myself this, how can it be that worms of the dust
will be and can be and have been exalted into greatness and glory? by the will of the supreme, majestic,
and glorious I am. That's how. That's how. This is why we are called kings
and priests. This is why we are joint heirs
with Christ. This is why we have the right
to own and wear the crown of glory and his robe of righteousness
because God so willed it. And I've heard people say that
in the New Testament, that passage where it says, you know, when
Christ is showing his people how to pray, his disciples, thy
will be done, thy kingdom come, and people repeat that like it's
a wish. I wish your will would be done.
No, it's a, the way it's worded, it's a matter of truth and a
sure fact. God's will shall be done, shall
be done. Now you ask Ezekiel, in Ezekiel
37, can these bones live? Thou knowest. Thou knowest, Lord, that thy
will will be done. And it was. Now he uses the preaching of
the gospel, the foolishness of preaching, to save them that
believe. Because then he told Ezekiel, blow, speak to these
things. And all this is a picture of
the preaching of the gospel, but it's all started Sinners
dead in trespasses and sins, and God says, can these bones
live? The preaching of the Gospels,
we looked at it, I think in Luke, is included in one of those miracles. We looked at this several months
ago. Christ said, you know, I'm doing this, this, this, this,
and this, this, and this, and I'm preaching the Gospel. And
it was all included in those miracles. So every time you come
and hear the Gospel, it's not me. I'm not trying to bring attention
here at all. But every time the gospel is
heard, it's a miracle of God's grace. And another thing is if
you understand, if you understand this gospel, if you understand
that you are worthless and hopeless and helpless, and that I am as
well, less than the least of all saints, if we understand
that, but we understand that His goodwill, His gentleness,
His meekness, His clemency, His providence, hath made us great,
or hath enlarged us, or hath increased us. Fifthly, the Septuagint. What's that? The Septuagint is
the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament from the
Hebrew to the Greek. It states this way, thy discipline,
thy discipline hath made us great. Now, if you're a believer, you
think about this. Indeed, our Father only chastises
His children. His seed, His elect, His remnant
people, which is always, as I said, for, and the scripture says,
is for our good and it's needful for growth and grace. And it
makes us more like Christ. He trains us up and will make
us ready for heaven. So, His discipline, and I know
it's like with our children, when we discipline our children,
they don't like it, but they don't understand you're doing
it because you love them. And you're preventing something perhaps,
you know, happening in the future, or training them, or teaching
them. Thy discipline hath made us great." David said, if I hadn't
been afflicted, I'd have gone astray. And you know our old
nature. It's still there. You know. Bruce makes this comment all
the time. He says, you know when you go on vacation, if you got
a decent job and you got more than two or three weeks vacation,
you go on vacation and you just have a good time, and then you
come back and you just The world's all over you. You like the things
of the world. All this stuff to the eyes. But
then when you get back with the brethren, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. And it's just lovely. It's absolutely lovely. You go
through a little bit of something. The Lord's in it. And you know He's
in it if you're His. Because there's not anything
that has happened, and nothing as it has happened, that He is
not the sovereign Lastly, the Chaldean. Okay, I've heard this
from Gil all my life, many years. What is that? Chaldean. Well, it's the Aramaic vernacular
which was used in early Bible lands or put another way, it's
the ancient Semitic speaking people or Abrahamic language. Listen to this. Thy word hath
increased me. It's all the same thing out of
Psalms 18, thy word has increased me, which I personally think
has a strong reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
word. And as I said, everything points
to him. Everything points to him. Thy
word, and if it doesn't mean Christ, everything in this book,
which is out without air. For our is our instruction our
instruction righteousness everything that we read here but I believe
that is speaking specifically about the word thy word hath
increased me and That's he says what Christ says without me you
can do nothing So in him we can do all things and all things
he says are ours the scriptures is written specifically for the
believer for comfort and Grace and mercy and help a time of
need The Lord, our Word, as it is by Him and through Him, and
we move and live and have our being, owing our new life, our
true increase, and everything we have to the Anointed One. Everything the believer has.
That's why in times of this country, they say it's chaos, it's from
God, so it's not chaos, it's just men are confused in chaos. But God is, as Tim James would
have said, this isn't even a blip on His map. He's doing exactly
as He pleases. And it's affecting the people
of God. Every time the people of God got taken captive to Babylon,
the elect were with them. So evils, I say evils in the
human term, evils and miscarriages, all these things happen to the
believers alike with everybody in this community. It's happening
to everybody in the community. But the believer knows, Romans
8.20, everything's working for good. We may not understand it, But that's okay. If you're in
Him, that's the issue. If you're not in Him, cry for
mercy. He has never turned down a genuine
heart cry for mercy because He puts it in the heart. So whether
we say good or bad, whatever terminology we use, the believer
owes everything, his new life, his true increase, everything
that we have to the Anointed One. He, Christ, must decrease,
be brought low, through suffering and death, that we, through no
worth of our own, may increase in all things spiritual. So that's
just kind of the opposite of what John the Baptist, he said,
he must increase, I must decrease. Well, he did decrease. So we
would increase, according to the word usage in, hath made
me great, increase, thy gentleness, thy word, thy discipline, thy good will,
thy providence, thy clemency, thy condescension hath made us
great, hath enlarged us. Now, if we have been attentive
to all these blessed renditions, these word renditions, we will
still draw the same glorious and worship-inducing Conclusion. David ascribed all his own greatness
to the condescending goodness of his father in heaven. May
this sentiment be echoed in our hearts this morning while we
cast our crowns at Jesus' feet and cry, thy gentleness hath
made me great. How marvelous has been our experience
of God's gentleness! How gentle have been His corrections! How gentle His forbearance! How
gentle His teachings! How gentle His drawings! Meditate
upon this theme, O believer! Let gratitude be awakened! Let
humility be deepened! And let love be quickened this
very hour! Because you'll see this, and
it's nothing that we've done, It's nothing that we've tried
to do. It's nothing we have prayed through. It's all owing to God's
free grace. His gentleness, indeed, hath
made each one of His people increased, enlarged, and great. To God be
the glory. Nathan, would you close us? gathering us here today. Thank
you for the message. Our actions are always.