A rock lesson at Devils Tower

October 21, 2020

Devotions, Blog

The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (Psalm 18:2).

Devils Tower in eastern Wyoming is an impressive "geologic oddity of epic proportions" (National Park Service).

The tower is composed of magma that solidified into igneous rock. As it rises above the rolling hills that surround it, the tower stretches almost 900 feet toward the sky.

A picture of the Lord

Despite its unfortunate name, Devils Tower offers a clear example of what Old Testament believers pictured when they thought of God as their rock.

"The LORD is my rock,… my God is my rock" Psalm 18:2 declares. Sal-i and sur, the Hebrew words used here for rock, do not allow us to think of God as a large stone or even a huge boulder. They picture the security and defense that is available on top of a towering rockface that is unclimbably steep. They picture the safety one could find on top of Devils Tower before helicopters were invented.

So Psalm 18 adds: "The LORD is my rock (sal-i), my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock (sur), in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."

A picture of our Savior

No wonder the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament to say Jesus is that rock. "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6, compare Romans 9:33 and 1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

God's Son, our sheer-faced rock tower, has delivered us from sin, Satan, and hell. He is our protective fortress in the face of life's most severe troubles. He is our refuge, our rest when we are weary and burdened. His word is our shield against temptation's arrows. He and he alone is our salvation from God's just punishment and our stronghold in the face of death.

Learn from Devils Tower. "The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."