Psalm 57 - Cave Praise

[00:00:00] Thank you for listening to the Calvary Monterey Podcast.

[00:00:08] Please visit calvary.com to learn more about our church.

[00:00:12] And visit nateholderage.com for additional Bible teaching for my lead pastor, Nate Holdridge.

[00:00:20] Teaching today is our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge. something different today. And so I'm teaching you a sermon that I prepared in about three minutes from Psalm 57 this morning. So we'll see how this goes. But we've got a big text in Exodus coming up and I didn't want to. It kind of just feels like a minimum day. You know, when you had like a minimum day when you were a kid

[00:01:41] or like a rainy day or a snow day,

[00:01:43] if you came from a place like that

[00:01:44] and you know your teacher played a movie

[00:01:46] or something like that,

[00:01:47] that was the impression that I got. is going to humelake this winter for their high school camp. I've sent my kids to humelake a couple of times. It's a fantastic place and ministry. Christian camps have changed a lot over the last 10 or 15 years here in California, and humelake is one of the last shows in town,

[00:03:01] and they do it better than anyone else in my estimation.

[00:03:06] So our kids are privileged to go there, in Jesus' name, we pray, amen. Psalm 57 is one of the Psalms that comes from the life of David during the season of his life that he was being persecuted by his father-in-law's soul.

[00:04:24] I know that we read of his story on the pages of scripture, and play your harp, to calm his mad and ailing soul, to then be out on a battlefield, hearing the taunting cry of a Philistine warrior, and being compelled by the spirit of God

[00:05:42] to go down into that valley for hand to hand happening to me, to run into the wilderness, to find a cave, and to cry out to God. It's a very real experience that David went through, a painful experience that David endured. It was the ultimate in betrayal, extreme loneliness, total pain.

[00:07:03] What would you do in a time like that? that's given to us at the beginning, it says that this is a song that he wrote from the cave of Agile. There he is in this cave, and he begins this song with a cry of faith. I want you to see what the cry of faith does to a cave.

[00:08:21] There he is in this cave and he says, God is my refuge.

[00:08:24] He's thinking of this cave as a place

[00:08:27] where God is saving him. but that Yahweh was his need. He felt that that cave would be a launching place for prayer. He said in verse two, I cry out to God most high. You know, I find that some people, when they find themselves in the caves of life, they feel abandoned, they feel betrayed,

[00:09:42] and they begin to say,

[00:09:43] why would I cry out to experience the steadfast love of the Lord.

[00:11:02] He just had his eyes upon new by that same God. But David in that cave said, God, I believe in your steadfast love towards me. How many of you by a show of hands today, you can say, I experience the steadfast love of God most acutely in some of my deepest pains of life.

[00:12:23] Is there anybody today who can testify to that? This is why we love the Psalms so much. They're so poetic, they're so beautiful. He's not writing a narrative. He doesn't just say, here's my situation. My father-in-law, he is nuts. And he's chasing me for no good reason. And he has soldiers at his disposal.

[00:13:41] And he's down here in the valley, hunting cave to cave to cave,

[00:13:44] looking for me.

[00:13:45] And eventually, he tongues are sharp swords. David was a man who was under attack. And it seems to me that what he felt he was going through in this situation was at the end of the day, he felt hunted.

[00:15:01] He felt hunted.

[00:15:04] And I wanna ask you this morning,

[00:16:07] bliss experience because it feels like there's no way out. David could probably relate to that idea.

[00:16:14] But how often have you also felt hunted by something within your own soul?

[00:16:25] The battles within, the thought life that cannot be verse 7 to the end of this song. He says, my heart is steadfast, oh God. My heart is steadfast. I will sing and make melody. Awake my glory. Awake, oh harp a reactionary song, isn't there? You know, the song of victory, the song of celebration, you know, you picture like a team that has won a championship,

[00:19:00] and there they are in the locker room

[00:19:02] with their song playing on the team stereo. a reason to sing. I've got to direct my heart to the steadfast love of God. I've got to direct my heart to Him. I've got to tell my heart where to go. A second thing though that David did is in this commitment is found in verse 8. To me, he's saying, I am going to beat the day

[00:21:26] You might be the kind of person that you do like to get up before the sun rises. It's dark when you wake up.

[00:21:28] But that's what David is saying.

[00:21:30] He's saying, this is who I am.

[00:21:32] I'm going to wake the dawn.

[00:21:35] Now, this doesn't have to be applied in a literal sense.

[00:21:39] You've got to get up before the sun rises to seek the Lord.

[00:21:43] I'm looking at Reed over here.

[00:21:44] He's a golf professional.

[00:21:45] He definitely gets up before the sun rises. comes by saying, Lord, at the beginning of today, I'm going to set it apart for you. I'm going to hear from you. I'm going to sit at your feet. I'm going to allow you some time to speak to my soul, to my heart. I want today to be a W, a win in the win column for you.

[00:23:02] And so I want to commit this day to you

[00:23:05] before it even begins.

[00:23:07] Beat the Lord. I don't know if you're a person that thankfulness comes naturally. I would really love to meet you after service if that's you. That's not me at all. I'm definitely not a naturally thankful thinking about future Nate all the time. And sometimes I have to take a step back and say, you know, Lord, I am thankful for what you're doing right now. I praise you for what you're doing right now. And what I find when I put myself through the discipline of

[00:25:41] thankfulness is that my disposition is moment, making a profit necessary. The prophets always interspersed throughout their correctives, these grand visions of hope. The glory of God covering the earth like the waters cover the sea.

[00:27:01] The nations coming to the mountain of God to hear the law of the Lord,