Comfort for the Suffering — Psalm 18:1-6
Towards the end of this week, if you’re following in our reading plan, you will come to Psalm 18:1-6. Psalm 18 begins with a historical note. The title explains that David wrote this psalm as thanksgiving to God for delivering him from his enemies. In it, David recounts God’s mercy toward him. Further, the Lord preserved David’s experience of His mercy to comfort us in our own suffering. Like Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” David is sharing with us, his fellow sufferers, the comforting mercy he received from God.
The event in David’s life that serves as Psalm 18’s backdrop is recorded in 1 Samuel 23:25-28. These verses tell us that David and his men were on the run from a man named Saul. Saul chased them into the mountain wilderness of Maon and was on the verge of capturing David and his men when a messenger came with news of a Philistine raid. The news forced Saul and his men to turn back and give up their pursuit of David. This is the moment David relives in Psalm 18.
In verses 4 and 5, David explains that he was as good as dead. He remembers, “The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted.” In his suffering David called out to the Lord, the Lord heard him, and delivered him. David looks back, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears” (v. 6). David comforts today’s sufferers by reminding us that God hears and answers our prayers.
David comforts today’s sufferers by reminding us that God hears and answers our prayers.
Like David, we should call upon the Lord for help in our distress. Some of us share experiences somewhat similar to David. We were on the verge of death or crisis, we prayed, and God delivered. We got to go home with a discharge note instead of a death certificate. These moments are truly of God’s mercy and a great comfort to us and others, but these moments of deliverance only delay the inevitable: death. So, we must remember to look beyond David to the comfort of King Jesus, the true and better David.
Jesus is the better King. When Jesus went to the cross he took on death and lived. He took on the death we deserved for our sin, and put our death to death by his resurrection. If we believe that Jesus really died and was raised, and we do, then we know that he who raised Jesus will raise us too. So, as we face various trials and sufferings we don’t have to lose heart. These things are preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:17). Until then we can rest in the comfort of Christ saying with David, “I love you, O LORD, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliver, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (v. 1-2).
