I love Psalm 18. It’s for anyone enduring distress or tribulation. Pursued by King Saul for unjust reasons, David prays:
In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears. (Psalm 18:6 NASB95)
Now before you read verses 7-14, remember the God who came to the aid of David is your God! In these verses, I think that David had a supernatural vision of how God responded to his difficulty.
Imagine for a moment, that you and a few friends are fleeing from an enemy, hiding in the mountains of West Virginia, with the forces of the anti-Christ closing in. Then you see what David saw in verses 7-14.
Okay, the previous paragraph was fanciful and breaks the rules of those who believe the church will be raptured before the appearance of the anti-Christ. Let’s consider being bullied or caught in a blind alley by muggers.
This is a Psalm for those in combat. Read the following out loud:
Then the earth shook and quaked; And the foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up out of His nostrils, and fire from His mouth devoured; Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also and came down with thick darkness under His feet. He rode upon a cherub and flew; And He sped upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him, darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. From the brightness before Him passed His thick clouds, hailstones, and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones, and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows, and scattered them, and lightning flashes in abundance, and routed them.
How can we fear anything if we believe Psalm 18:7-14? It depicts how God responded to David, as we remember that we love the same God.
Verse 33 describes why God allowed David’s difficulty… ours too!
He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and sets me upon my high places (v. 33)
When in danger, remember Psalm 18.