Psalms for the Spiritual Traveler

We’re in our third week of studying various Psalms.  We’ve seen God’s greatness and kindness in Psalm 113.  And we’ve seen his love as supremely satisfying – even in the midst of suffering, in Psalm 63.  Today we’ll see how we can cry with confidence in Psalm 57.  And next week we’ll see how God wants his people to live from Psalm 101.

The Psalms are an oasis for the spiritual traveler.  They provide water and nourishment, shade and rest, while we walk through the many seasons and emotions and experiences of life.  We should be familiar with Psalms because it was Israel and Jesus’s hymnbook.  The 150 psalms were how God’s people expressed themselves in worship for over a thousand years.  Many of the early Christians used the psalms in their worship services, a practice followed by the Puritans and by Charles Spurgeon.  The modern worship leaders Shane and Shane devoted an entire album to singing the psalms.  The Lord’s people have been singing the Lord’s word for a long time.  So it’s good for us to get these songs in front of our eyes and into our hearts.

Laments for Us

There are a variety of psalms in the psalter.  There are hymns, laments, songs of thanksgiving, divine kingship songs, and wisdom songs.  The songs of lament are the most prevalent of the psalms with over sixty of them.  Psalm 57 is a song of lament.  What is a song of lament?  It’s a song of crying out, of mourning, of grief.  The writers of the psalms were realists.  They lived in the real world with real problems and real sin and real enemies and real fears and real loss and real pain.  They acknowledged that life wasn’t always well ordered or well oriented.  Disorientation, or confusion and uncertainty, best describes life at times.  The laments are songs of disorientation written in light of this reality.

Laments typically answer three questions: Who, why, and what?  Who is there to hear the psalmist’s prayer?  Why am I experiencing trouble?  And what does the psalmist want God to do?  The “why” portion is often called a “complaint.”  But not a complaint in the sense of the rebellious complaining of God’s people in the wilderness (cf. Num. 11:1).  The complaint is simply the psalmist describing with great emotion the struggles that he’s experiencing.  The complaints may be directed to God, to other people, or to themselves. 

The complaints of the lament psalms teach us a very important lesson: it’s good and right to be honest with God.  One commentator says, “Through the laments the Holy Spirit gives us great encouragement and great freedom to express all that we are thinking and feeling, whether those thoughts are about ourselves, others, or even God.”  The laments are honest statements of how the psalmist feels about themselves, others, and God.  They aren’t prideful accusations but humble assessments, written with tears, not pride.

Though written thousands of years ago, the laments are for us.  They’re for us because we’ve all experienced trouble to one degree or another.  The journey of life can take us over some very difficult terrain.  As one writer says, “Adversity replaces prosperity.  Turmoil swallows up tranquility.  Chaos obliterates order.  Doubt replaces faith.”  God gave us laments in light of this reality.

The dominate note of a lament is a sad one, but the final note is usually one of joy and expectation.  Most laments move from negative to positive, from plea to praise.  Psalm 57 is no different.  It begins with a section of complaint and cries for help and ends with confidence and praise.  The first six verses are David’s cry for help.  The last five verses are his statement of confidence in the Lord.  Because these laments are written down for us, and not just to describe David’s life, we can apply these sections to our lives like this: our cry (vv. 1-6) and our confidence (vv. 7-11).

Our Cry

First, our cry (vv. 1-6).  The title to the psalm tells us that David wrote this psalm when he was fleeing from Saul and hiding in a cave.  This could’ve been when David initially fled from Saul and hid in the cave of Adulam (1 Sam. 22:1) or later when David and his men were hiding out in the same cave that Saul chose to go in and relieve himself (1 Sam. 24:1-3).  Either way, the situation is the same.  David is running for his life because his former boss is jealous of him and wants to kill him. 

Samuel tells us that David’s army is made up of “everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul…about four hundred men” (22:2).  Saul’s army was made up of thousands of Israel’s best soldiers.  On paper, David didn’t have a chance against Saul.  He was outmatched and outnumbered.  So he did what any of us would’ve done, he found a cave to hide in.

When Suzy and I were walking up to see the lower falls in Yosemite, it started pouring down rain.  We stopped under some trees for a while, but we were still getting soaked, so we kept moving until Suzy spotted this little cave in the rocks.  So we went over and bunkered down in the cave for about half an hour, keeping an eye out for mountain lions and bears.  In the cave, we were protected from the rain and able to dry out.  The cave gave us shelter in our time of need.

God Our Refuge

David also found shelter in a cave when the rain of Saul’s wrath was headed his way.  But notice what he says in verse 1, “O God…in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.”  David is in a cave but he says that his cave is God.  The cave of God’s presence is where David runs for safety.

The Lord as “refuge” is one of the most prevalent and powerful metaphors for God in the psalms.  The Hebrew word for “refuge” refers to a shelter, or place of safety and protection from things like the sun or rain.  David is saying, “In you, God, my soul takes shelter, my soul finds safety.”  The image is a picture of divine protection.  God is protecting David.  He is the true Cave that keeps him safe.  David saw beyond the rock of the cave to the Rock who is God.  He knew that a cave by itself could just as easily be a trap, a place where he was cornered and defeated.  He knew that his true protection must be something larger and more formidable than the cave he was hiding in.  God was therefore the place he truly hid.

This morning, maybe you’re looking to something besides God to find shelter in.  Maybe you’re looking to something besides God for safety, something besides God to get you through the storm.  Maybe you think that you’re retirement or your house or your family or your education or your job or your friends or your government will offer you the safety you need to make it through this life.  Friends, please don’t be deceived.  While these can be good things, they can also be traps.  They appear to provide safety but can also bring pain, heartache, and confusion.  They have the illusion of protection until the stock market crashes or a house burns down or a loved one dies or a job is lost or a government crumbles.  We must look beyond the “solid rock” of the various caves we’re trusting to protect us to the only Cave who can truly protect us, shield us, and keep us safe.  The Lord God, in his mercy, desires to be our refuge.  He wants us to hide in him, just like a baby chick hides in its mother’s wings.  Where are you hiding?  What are you looking to as your ultimate protection?  “O God…in you my soul takes refuge.”

In verse 2, David cries out to “God most high, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.”  Even in the midst of his trouble, David is confident that God’s will will be done.  So he cries out to God.  He doesn’t take his complaint to Twitter or Facebook or friends or neighbors.  He goes to God.

In verse 3, he says that God will save him and defeat his enemies.  His confidence isn’t based on wishful thinking, but on the promises of God.  When he refers to God’s “steadfast love and his faithfulness,” he’s referring to God’s covenant love (hesed) for Israel.  God’s love is “steadfast” because he made promises to his people, and he is a promise keeper.  He is loyal to his people.  He will not let them down.

God Sent from Heaven to Save Us

What’s remarkable about God’s covenant love toward Israel is that it’s not changed by their sin and rebellion.  God continues to love his people despite their unfaithfulness to him.  His loyalty to them isn’t based on their loyalty to him. 

In the new covenant, God’s love is no different.  Through Jesus death on the cross, God’s love is unconditionally offered to everyone who’ll trust in him and turn from their sin.  In Jesus, God “sent from heaven to save us” (v. 3).  The holy God who created all things took on human flesh, lived a perfect life, and died for our sins so that we may escape the “storms of destruction” that will come upon all those who die in their sin. 

Through his resurrection, Jesus “put to shame” our enemies, those “who trample on us,” namely our great enemies of sin, Satan, and death.  Our enemies are even more vicious than David’s.  David describes his enemies as lions (v. 4), but our enemy Satan is a lion.  He wants us dead.  The apostle Paul says, “The sting of death is sin” (1 Cor. 15:56).  Sin has killed us.  We cannot escape the grave.  It’s the rightful reward for all who’ve rebelled against the God who made them.  Who can save us from the “fiery beasts” of sin, Satan, and death?  Only one man, the Son of David, Jesus Christ.  Paul continues, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57). 

We’ll look at verse 5 in a moment, as it’s repeated in verse 11.  David ends this first section with another description of his enemies in verse 6.  His enemies are like hunters who use a net and a pit to capture their prey.  But they’re the ones who fall victim to their traps.  The tables are turned and evil, as it characteristically does in Scripture, brings about its own judgment.

Our Confidence

The lament of verses 1-6 shows us that, in times of trouble, our cry should go to God and that we should hide in him and trust in his promises.  In verses 7-11, David’s lament turns into a statement of confidence.

In spite of danger, David remains calm.  Verse 7, “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!”  His life is in danger and his heart is calm.  Remaining calm in times of trouble and danger reveals the fiber of our faith.  I’m not talking about stoicism, or the absence of all emotion, as that would discount all the psalms of lament.  Freaking out in times of trouble is often an indication that we’ve put our trust in the thing that we’re upset about, rather than God.  Is your heart steadfast when trouble comes? 

David is so calm in the midst of trouble that he can praise God, “I will sing and make melody!” (v. 7) He knows that God can rescue him so he praises him with music: “Awake, my glory!  Awake, O harp and lyre!”  He’s so confident in God that he’ll even start singing praises to him before the break of dawn.  “I will awake the dawn!”  The rising sun will find David praising God.  And his worship will be public, not just private.  Verse 9, “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.”  The Lord isn’t just a local deity.  He’s not a regional God who just belongs to David and the Israelites.  He’s the God of the whole universe and his love and faithfulness permeate everything (v. 10).  He therefore deserves praise among all the nations.

David’s Son Delivered and Vindicated

Verse 11 is a repeat of verse 5.  In the midst of trouble, David wanted God to be exalted and glorified in all the earth.  In the cave of despair and fear, David’s chief concern was the glory of God.

David cried out to God and was confident in God at the same time.  He cried out for help and knew that help would come.  He trusted in the covenant promises of God so much that he knew he would be delivered.  “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations” (v. 9).  He wanted God to be exalted through his deliverance.  Verse 11, “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!”  David would be saved and God would be glorified.  God’s glory would spread when David was vindicated by God.

Little did David know that one of his distant sons would exalt God’s name and spread his glory over all the earth.  Jesus, the heir to David’s throne, also suffered at the hands of those who wanted to destroy him.  And, like David, he was delivered from his enemies when the Father raised him from the dead, thus vindicating his life and ministry and proving that his death for sinners was accepted by the Father.  Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s name is exalted “above the heavens” and his glory is spreading “over all the earth” (vv. 5, 11).   

The Lament of the Gospel, and Our Lives

As a lament, Psalm 57 starts with a cry and ends with confidence.  It moves from suffering to glory.  The entire book of psalms moves in the same direction.  The front end is loaded with laments and it ends with hymns of praise.  Psalm 57 and the entire psalter are a picture of the life of Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ life moves from suffering to glory, from plea to praise.  He bears the cross before he wears the crown.  He walks through pain before he enters paradise.

This is also the story of our lives as his followers.  The story arc of our lives is simple: as Jesus’ followers, we must carry our cross before we wear our crown.  We walk through pain before we enter paradise.  We move from suffering to glory.  Jesus, and all those who follow him, live lives of lament.

Because of the great promises of the gospel, that there is indeed glory coming for all those who faithfully follow Jesus, we can live now in the joy of knowing him.  We can live for the exaltation of his name and the spreading of his glory.  Because God’s glory is our inheritance, the spreading of his glory is our mission. 

God has been merciful to us, he’s been a cave for us to hide in, he’s come down from heaven to save us from his wrath, he’s rescued us from the lions of sin, Satan, and death, and he’s given us a confidence and a calmness to sustain us in any trouble.  Therefore, we worship him, “I will sing and make melody!” and we help others worship him, “I will sing praises to you among the nations.”

May God help us to hide in him when trouble comes.  And may God help us to be willing to endure any trouble we must for the spreading of his glory among the nations.