The quotation is from the second verse of Psalm eighteen: “The Lord
is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength,
in whom I will trust.” These originally are “the words of David,
the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this
song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his
enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” But, as a noted Bible teacher has
pointed out, the Holy Spirit put into the mouth of David words that
went infinitely beyond his own experience, words that could only be
fulfilled in their true meaning when the greater Son of David came and
met the forces of evil that were faintly foreshadowed by the enemies
David met.
Read through the eighteenth Psalm as the words of the Lord Jesus. It is
an inspired description of the awful conflict of the powers of darkness
against the Son of man, when he tasted death for every man. Have you
ever wondered why there were not given to us in the four Gospels more
intimate glimpses of the human heart-throbs of Jesus? Have you wished
that you might enter somewhat into the meaning of Gethsemane, rather
than to have him go into the garden alone? Read in the eighteenth and
other Messianic Psalms the human heart-throbs of the Son of man.
“I love thee, O Jehovah, my strength.
Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
My God, my rock, in whom I will take refuge;
My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
I will call upon Jehovah, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from mine enemies.
The cords of death compassed me,
And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.
The cords of Sheol were round about me;
The snares of death came upon me.”