Daily Lesson for October 15, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 18 verses 16 through 20:

16 He sent from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of many waters.
17 He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
19 He brought me out into a broad place;
he rescued me, because he delighted in me.
20 The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.

Psalm 18 is a psalm extolling God for deliverance.  In the psalter's preface to the psalm it tells us it is a psalm of David, written "on the day when the LORD rescued him from the hand of all his enemies and the hand of Saul."  It is a psalm of great, great celebration -- for victory had been swept from the clutches of defeat, and David had been rescued from the maw of destruction.

I have just one little problem with Psalm 18 and really it's almost impossible to see it except by knowing what we know about what happened to David after he was rescued from the hand of Saul and replaced him as king.

Here's the problem verse for me:

"The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me."

Embedded in this wonderful psalm celebrating God's rescue and deliverance is a small, almost imperceptible thought from David captured in verse 20: "I deserved it."  "The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness," David said. And that thought will later prove to be his undoing, because it was based in his own self-righteousness and ego.

After his defeat of Saul, David pens the psalm then ascends to the throne.  But not long after, he is sending for another man's wife. And soon after, he is ordering his murder.  Why?  Because a king deserves to commit adultery and not get caught?  But he does get caught, and afterward he pens another psalm, Psalm 51 where he writes the exact opposite of what he wrote in verse 20 of psalm 18:

"Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin."

The take home: Woe be to any of us who have been delivered and brought on high and think it has anything to do with our deserving it. We are today where we are by God's grace and God's grace alone. Tomorrow it could all change.

And surely there would be grace to be found there too.