Psalm 18 

⁰⁷          Then: the earth rocked and rolled;

the foundations  of the mountains trembled,

they quaked  because He was angry.

⁰⁸          Smoke rose from His nostrils,

 consuming fire came from His mouth.

blazing coals flamed froth.

⁰⁹             He opened the heavens

 and came down;

thick clouds were under His feet.

¹⁰                             [Escorted by]  cherubim, He flew;

swiftly on the wings of the wind.

¹¹             He made darkness His covering,

His canopy around Him,

thick were these rain clouds.

¹²                Out of the brightness of His presence

            the clouds scampered,

amidst hailstones and coals of fire.

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Great is the Lord of Hosts

For the Lord’s Day:  the 4^th of April 2004

Introduction:  Delitzsch points us to 1 Samuel 7:10 for an understanding of David’s vision in these and the following verses.  “As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel.  But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were routed before Israel.”  Again, in 2 Kings 6: 15-17 the prophet Elisha prays that his servants eyes might be opened to see that “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”  In modern times, the stories of an Angel of Mons have circulated down through the years of the twentieth century – as an expression of the heart felt care and protection enjoyed by members of “The Old Contemptibles,” in Belgium during the opening months of the Great European & World War: who were forced to flee the superior might and power of the advancing Germanic armies.

 

In this stead we may understand the heart felt assurance known by David in some extreme circumstance or another.  All heaven appears to have broken loose to oppose the wicked hosts arrayed against the Lord’s servant:  David.

 

Development:  My Translator’s Handbook announces that “this verse begins with a connective showing that the action is in response to a previous one.”  The word “Then” “is important in translation to mark this connective, since it signals the start of a process which will continue” through to verse twenty-four.

 

It was often reported when I was young – that my grandfather could literally shake the old house when he threw a temper tantrum.  Everyone who could ducked or fled and found whatever refuge they could until his temper subsided!  More often than not these outbursts were prompted by politics and events outside of the family.  I can remember my own father’s fit to be tied when my younger brother brought home a socialist book from the school library that advocated collective farms.  I would dearly have loved to have sat in on the next board meeting when he informed the administration that the book had been destroyed and while he would pay for it – there had better never be another of its kind put before impressionable young people!  Righteous indignation we should properly call this.  And in the awesome presence of the Lord God Almighty we should always be thankful that the awesome ire of the Lord presented here must be devoted and directed towards all of those who oppose Him and His righteous will.  There are scenes here that everyone may not realize until that great and awesome day when all heaven breaks loose at the end of the age.

 

Now, since we have a longer text than usual, let us consider briefly verses seven and eight together: “Then: the earth rocked and rolled; the foundations of the mountains trembled, they quaked because He was angry.  Smoke rose from His nostrils, consuming fire came from His mouth, blazing coals flamed froth.”

 

Since Vietnam, the phrase “rock & roll” in military lingo is linked with the intention of the old bugle call “boots & Saddles.”  On other words, it is a notation of being summoned to prepare for battle.  And so, at the awesome spectacle of the Lord Almighty preparing for battle, the earth itself must tremble and quake because the Creator is angry, very angry.  Calvin puts this vision in the proper perspective:  David “sets forth an image of [God’s righteous indignation] in the sky and earth … If natural things always flowed in an even and uniform course, the power of God would not be so perceptible.  But when he changes the face of the sky by sudden rain, or by loud thunder, or by dreadful tempest, those who before were … asleep and insensible, must necessarily be awakened, and be tremblingly conscious of the existence of a presiding God.”

 

And just as on a cold frosty morning, you can see your own breath – so is the great anger of the Lord demonstrated not only in the forces of nature, but also in the spiritual realm as well.  If armies may be stopped by a sudden fear – so may the forces of Satan as well!  In this opening image, there is not only the natural storm but also the convulsion of the earth in quake, fire and brimstone as well.

 

Verse nine in our translation has three lines to demonstrate three points.   “He opened the heavens and came down; thick clouds were under His feet.”  The verbiage describing the opening of the heavens here is much like the parting of a gap in the curtains on a stage, so that one may step through to address the audience which is kept thereby apart from the stage hands and crew as they go about their work.  In this instance, the Lord will cross over from His heavenly throne and directly come down to earth to deal personally with the enemies of David.

 

We would think that such an event would be viewed by all and sundry, from one end of the earth to another.  However, the coming of the Lord of hosts is veiled in the clouds of nature and natural events in this instance.  It is rather like the laying of smoke by naval units at sea or land units to improve the fog of war.  He is coming to invoke His divine wrath – but those carried away by it may never ever know in this life what happened.  And yet David is privileged to know that the supreme power in the universe has made Himself known to such a lowly servant as the onetime King in Israel.

 

Verse ten I have amended slightly so as to give a more modern image: “[Escorted by] cherubim, He flew; swiftly on the wings of the wind.”  His reaction is so immediate, it can be described in common earthy terms as “like a bat out of Hades.”

 

However, it is truly all heaven that breaks loose in the text.  And I am reminded here of a story told to me by a close friend.  On the 9/11, he had driven home from school and stopped at the store to get some groceries.  There wasn’t a plane in the sky he observed, but as soon as he walked through the door, he heard a loud noise and stepped outside to see Air Force One roar overhead at almost tree-top level.  Close behind were three of our fighters in close escort duty.  The president was returning to Washington and as we all learned the next day – he meant business, which is still ongoing these many months later!

 

In Afghanistan, horse mounted United States Air Force agents, would soon call down fire from circling jets, but they had first to paint the target with a laser image to hasten the destruction of the enemy.  Once the way was opened, our allied Afghan tribesmen then galloped into battle the old fashioned way, since the enemy tanks and fortifications had been roasted whole and alive! 

 

What a terrible and dreadful storm this vision of David’s must have been?  Death and destruction must come from the skies and all the earth trembles at the tempest of battle, so it the nature of our poetic rhapsody of God’s wrath. 

 

Blind the enemy must be to Him who conquers!  When the Lord God of heaven and earth fights earthly battles – the enemy is never quite sure why and how they turned up in hell!  “He made darkness His covering, His canopy around Him, thick were these rain clouds.”  This week’s World magazine evaluates the ongoing dilemma of the evolutionary fools – who do not even realize that the intellectual battles are passing them by and that ongoing developments in real science are making their religious myths quaint and seemingly irrelevant to the real world that must exist in a collection of facts and information rather than ancient dreams and desires to paint their myth upon the very rocks and trees that defy their theories!

 

This too will pass, we may quantify the Darwinists and in their throwing down the gauntlet to the civilized people of the world, the suspicious Mullahs and their spiritual slaves must also learn that time has passed and just as it is no longer the thirteenth century, neither is mankind continually beholden to being converted by their threats and swords.  Confused must be the Spanish government today – didn’t they throw in the towel when they were attacked?  Now – there is the problem of another bomb that by all reason shouldn’t have followed up the earlier attacks.  Will they, must they hand over Granada to the Muslims in compensation for past wrongs done during the Reconquista at the time of Columbus?

 

Just as the Supreme Soviet collapsed, and the minor teams of Saddam, Kadafi and others quake in the after effects – so is this old world being cleansed of their like and kin by the ongoing power of God.  One could almost become post millennial in face of the current history of this year and last?  But, I digress.

 

Application:  We come now to our last verse for today, the twelfth:  “Out of the brightness of His presence the clouds scampered, amidst hailstones and coals of fire.”  The image here is that not only has the earth shuddered, quaked and trembled at His presence, so here the clouds scatter amidst the sparking presence of His awesome and eternal being.  The image in my mind is that of the Space Shuttles that glow when they encounter the upper atmosphere.  Of course, the image to be conveyed is certainly beyond our experience and understanding, so it must be grander in theme and loftier amidst the divine presence of the Creator God.

 

And so at the end of the age, all spiritual darkness will flee at His presence and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess the Name above all Names.  To David, as well as to all the elect – we are given the spiritual new birth so that when He comes – we will know Him as our own.

 

When the Old Contemptibles, who I mentioned earlier, staggered away from the 1914 battlefields of Belgium and retreated south towards the Marne River – many reported that they were so exhausted they hardly knew what they were doing.  Only when the bugles, drummers and pipers called them to duty, did they turn and throw themselves into the ongoing fray.  Later, that gruesome fall of 1914 – the greater majority of Britain’s long term professional soldiers had passed on to a glory or gory, not of this earth.  They sacrificed themselves so that the Empire could survive and that little Belgium might in due time be rescued from the tyrant’s heel.

 

While there is certain grandness to David’s poetry that rises above our ordinary human experience – it is a similar story write larger on the pages of History: that the Son of God came down from heaven and threw Himself into the battle with Satan and died on the cross for all of our sakes.  Tired He was of the battle the night before, yet even though as the old spiritual goes:  “He could have called ten thousand angels; but He died alone for you and for me!”

 

Many still do not see the reality of that grand climatic battle of history, because according to God’s sovereign purpose – the whole thing is cloaked in darkness.  Except for those who belong to Him and it is the sovereign glory of the Christ that we know and see, He who has risen from the dead and now reigns in heaven, He is our vision even as David’s realization that God had this plan for salvation that is fully known and shared today.  “To God be the glory, great things He has done!”  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

Calvin, John:  Commentary on Book of Psalms.

Delitzsch, F:  Commentary on the Old Testament – Psalms.

Spurgeon, C.H:  Treasury of David.

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