Hymns from Adullams Cave
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Psalm 57
Psalm 57
To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.
1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.
2 I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
3 He will send from heaven and save me;
he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah
God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!
4 My soul is in the midst of lions;
I lie down amid fiery beasts—
the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows,
whose tongues are sharp swords.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth!
6 They set a net for my steps;
my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my way,
but they have fallen into it themselves. Selah
7 My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
8 Awake, my glory!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
9 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
10 For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth!
We rejoin David this week in the cave of Adullam. A few weeks back we covered Psalm 34 which was written shortly after David fled from the king of Gath and sought shelter in the cave of Adullam. Now we rejoin David in this season of his life living as a fugitive, on the run from Saul who was seeking his life.
1 David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. 2 And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.
Yet despite this being a low point in David’s life, this is a Psalm of triumph, a song of victory!
The greatest men and women are founded in the crucible of struggle.
The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
Charles Spurgeon
Would we know of the name Corrie Ten Boom were it not for her time incarcerated in Ravensbruck concentration camp? She, her sister would lead their fellow prisoners in times of prayer and worship, there were songs of hope in the most hopeless of places.
David turned this dank cave into a cathedral, pouring out his heart in prayer and praise to God.
He is a picture and a foreshadow of Christ who in his moment of deep distress in the garden of Gethsemane turned his heart to the Father and prayed. Christs trial was ultimately his triumph - His victory over sin and death on our behalf was through the crucible of suffering, through the cross.
Your greatest victories, your biggest moments in life will undoubtedly be when testing times come. How will you handle it when people turn against you? Who will you turn to when you experience loss? Or when you are threatened?
David repeats the line ‘Be exalted, O God above the heavens, let your glory be over all the earth’ at the end of the first half of the Psalm and at the end of the second half. God’s exaltation, His glory are linked directly to David’s trial - God will be glorified through David’s deliverance.
The end goal of our struggles and trials is the glory of God! This is ultimately true of Christ - who’s trial through crucifixion has glorified the name of God forever. Showing him to be the ultimate deliverer, the ultimate saviour, the ultimate redeemer.
Think of it like this - each and every one of your trials is an opportunity for God to display His glory in the earth, and and through that trial.
Spurgeon said it is not the healthy oyster that produces the pearl but the unhealthy one, the one which has been breached by an intruder. It then turns that intruder into a pearl!
This moment was the making of David - this is really when he gets shaped into the King that he will someday be. He learned things hiding in the caves that he couldn’t learn in the kings court. God shapes us through trials, your tests and challenges in life are the making of you.
David calls our attention to this very fact in verse 2 - I cry out to El Elyon - who fulfills his purpose for me. David saw his trials, he saw the fearful dangers that surrounded him but he saw them as instruments of God’s purpose in his life. David believed in the providence of God - God’s governing of all things, His working of all things for His own glory and for the good of His people.
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
27.Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A.
God's providence is
his almighty and ever present power,
whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds
heaven and earth and all creatures,
and so governs them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and barren years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
riches and poverty,
indeed, all things,
come to us not by chance
but by his fatherly hand.
God has a unique purpose for everything in this world - He has a unique purpose for you. And every now and then he lets us catch a glimpse of that purpose, that calling that he has placed on our life. Sometimes it’s in unusual things that happen to us; a phone call that brings us an opportunity out of the blue, or in a chance meeting with someone who goes on to be an important figure in your life. God’s fingerprints are all over your life.
Story of YFC gap year where Becca and I met - I wanted to return home within a few days of starting the training, Gav convinced me otherwise. Gav and Anne went against their better judgement and placed me and Becca together on the same placement.
I think David brought those moments of God’s faithful guiding hand in his life to mind in the cave - he rehearsed God’s testimonies in His life when everything seemed random and scary. He sought refuge not just in the cave but in God. When life is overwhelming remind youself of those moments in your past when God has guided you, where he has led you, where he has delivered you from trouble. Seek shelter in Him.
David says - in you my soul takes refuge.
refuge
/ˈrɛfjuːdʒ/
noun
1.the state of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or difficulty:
There’s nothing like feeling safe when all around there is threat. Story from Nigeria - threat was everywhere, when you were in the company of armed guards you felt safe.
David withdrew into the shadow of God’s wings. The image is of a mother hen covering her chicks with her wings, sheltering them from danger and keeping them warm. Jesus uses the same imagery in Matt 23:37
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
David says in the shadow of your wings I WILL take refuge until storms of destruction pass by. It was a choice that David made - He was resolved to take refuge in God. How was it that he did this? How do you take refuge in God?
1. Gratitude - David was hidden within the cave, but he knew that it was God who had provided the cave for him as a hiding place. There’s a story in the Talmud about a spider spinning it’s web over the cave entrance where David’s men were hiding. Whether true or not - David knew that finding this hiding place was no happy accident. When we give God thanks for his provision for us, when we have a heart of gratitude we begin to take shelter in Him.
2. Prayer - David also says - I cry out to God Most High (El Elyon) When we turn to God in prayer we are taking refuge in Him. When prayer becomes our habit we are safe in His hands.
3. Truth - David uses one of God’s special Divine names - El Elyon (God most high). Saul was high but Yahweh was higher. David brought to mind the truth of who God is from His word and as he put that doctrine to action in prayer, he was made to feel safe in the most high God. People say - I don’t care about doctrine, its boring. But knowing God is the most important pursuit in all of life.
There are many types of storm that batter the shoreline of our hearts in this life - storms of suffering, storms of temptation, storms of fear. We must make seeking refuge in God a daily habit.
And as we do so - let us have the sort of faith that David had in our prayer life.
3 He will send from heaven and save me;
he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah
God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!
David had not yet seen his salvation, he had not yet seen his enemies put to shame but he confidently declared these things to be true as if they had already happened! It was like he was looking back from the future and thanking God for what he was seeing. It reminds me of the words of shadrach Meshach and Abednego as they were about to be thrown into the fiery furnace:
17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
We can be absolutely confident that God will save us, we can be absolutely confident that our foe will be vanquished and we can be confident of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness to us right now. Maybe you don’t feel his love right now, maybe in the season you’re in right now you’re wondering if God is still with you. But you can have confidence that he is. Why? Because he has given us His word. And he has sealed this word by sending Christ into the world to save us.
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
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