When God is All You Have Left Text: Psalm 142:5-7
Introduction: The Cave as a Classroom
This psalm is a maskil, which means it is a psalm of instruction. And the title tells us the classroom where this particular lesson was learned. It was a prayer of David, "when he was in the cave." This is not a sterile, academic exercise. This is theology forged in the dark, with the smell of damp earth in the air and the sound of three thousand of Saul's soldiers clattering around outside. David is in a very low place, both geographically and spiritually. He is cornered, abandoned, and hunted. And it is in this place, when all human supports have been kicked out from under him, that he learns the most fundamental lesson of all. It is a lesson every one of us must learn, whether our cave is a literal one, or a cave of depression, a cave of financial ruin, a cave of loneliness, or a cave of persecution.
The world tells you that when you are in such a state, you are a victim. You are to lament your fate, curse your enemies, and sink into the mire of self-pity. But the Word of God teaches us something entirely different. The cave is not a tomb; it is a crucible. It is the place where God strips away our self-reliance and our trust in men so that we might learn to say with David, and mean it, that God alone is our refuge. This prayer ascends from a low place, but true prayer always ascends. It does not puddle on the floor of the cave. It rises to the throne of God. And when it does, it changes the man who prays it, long before it changes his circumstances.
We see in the first part of this psalm that David has looked to his right hand, where his defender should be, and found no one. Refuge has failed him. No man cares for his soul. He is utterly alone. It is a pitiful blues lament, "Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too." When you get to that point, the point of absolute human bankruptcy, you have only two places to go. You can go into the black hole of despair, or you can turn your face upward to God. David does the latter, and in these final three verses, we see the anatomy of a prayer that takes a man from the brink of disaster to the certainty of deliverance.
The Text
I cried out to You, O Yahweh;
I said, “You are my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.
Give heed to my cry of lamentation,
For I am brought very low;
Deliver me from my persecutors,
For they are too strong for me.
Bring my soul out of prison,
To give thanks to Your name;
The righteous will encircle me,
For You will deal bountifully with me.”
(Psalm 142:5-7 LSB)
The Great Confession of a Cornered Man (v. 5)
After surveying his desolate human situation, David turns. This is the pivot of the psalm.
"I cried out to You, O Yahweh; I said, 'You are my refuge, My portion in the land of the living.'" (Psalm 142:5)
Notice the progression. He has already stated that "refuge failed me" (v. 4). All the earthly shelters, the foxholes, the alliances, the friendships, have proven to be worthless. So what does he do? He cries out to Yahweh. He makes a deliberate, spoken declaration. "I said..." This is not a vague feeling or a hopeful wish. This is a confession of faith, spoken out loud in the darkness of the cave. He is preaching to his own soul.
And what is the content of this confession? "You are my refuge." This is the fundamental choice every believer must make. Will you trust in the refuges that men build, which are all slated for demolition? Or will you trust in the living God, who is a strong tower into which the righteous run and are safe? David is saying, "Since all other shelters are frauds, I declare that You, and You alone, are my bomb shelter."
But he doesn't stop there. He says God is also his "portion in the land of the living." A portion is an inheritance, a share. In the world, men seek their portion in land, in money, in power, in reputation. David says that his inheritance, his entire estate, the sum total of his wealth, is God Himself. And he wants this portion not in some ethereal, far-off heaven, but "in the land of the living." This is a robust, earthy, postmillennial faith. David expects God to be his all-in-all right here, in history, on this side of the grave. He is not praying for an escape hatch out of the world; he is praying for God's deliverance and blessing within it. This is a crucial distinction. Our hope is not to be airlifted out of the battle, but to be made victorious in the battle, right where we are.
The Logic of Weakness (v. 6)
Having made his great confession, David now presents his case to God. And his arguments are fascinating. He argues from his own weakness and desperation.
"Give heed to my cry of lamentation, For I am brought very low; Deliver me from my persecutors, For they are too strong for me." (Psalm 142:6)
His first argument is, "Listen to me, because I am brought very low." In the courts of men, you come boasting of your strength, your credentials, your leverage. In the court of heaven, you plead your weakness. God has a special regard for the lowly (Ps. 138:6). Our emptiness is the vessel into which He delights to pour His grace. When you are at the end of your rope, you are in a perfect position to grab hold of the hand of God. Your bankruptcy is your greatest asset before the throne of grace.
His second argument is similar: "Deliver me, because they are too strong for me." David was a warrior. He had killed a lion, a bear, and a giant. But here he freely admits he is outmatched. Saul has the whole apparatus of the state. David has a handful of malcontents in a cave. He is completely outgunned. And he tells God this. "This is too much for me. I cannot handle this." This is not a sign of unbelief; it is the engine of true prayer. When we admit that the opposition is too strong for us, we are creating an opportunity for God to show that it is not too strong for Him. Our extremity is simply the stage God builds to display His delivering power. He loves a fair fight, one man against three thousand, so that when the victory comes, there is no question as to who gets the glory.
From Prison to Praise (v. 7)
The final verse is a stunning turn. From the same cave, in the same circumstances, David's prayer moves from petition to confident assurance. He sees, with the eye of faith, how this is all going to turn out.
"Bring my soul out of prison, To give thanks to Your name; The righteous will encircle me, For You will deal bountifully with me." (Psalm 142:7)
He asks God to bring his soul out of prison. This prison is the cave, yes, but it is more than that. It is the prison of fear, of isolation, of despair. It is the condition of being cornered with no way out. And what is the purpose of this jailbreak? "To give thanks to Your name." The ultimate end of our deliverance is not our comfort, but God's glory. God saves us so that we might become living, breathing advertisements for His goodness and power. Our testimony is the praise of His name. This is the chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and that purpose runs through every circumstance, especially our tight spots.
Then comes the great reversal. In verse 4, no one would stand with him. Now, he sees a future where "the righteous will encircle me." The man who was abandoned by all will become the center of a great congregation of the faithful. He sees the church. He sees the kingdom. He knows that his current isolation is a lie, a temporary state of affairs. Faith looks beyond the empty cave to the crowded court of the king. And why will this happen? What is the basis for this confidence?
It is the final clause: "For You will deal bountifully with me." This is the bedrock. He is not confident in his own merits. He is not confident that his circumstances will magically improve. He is confident in the character of God. He knows that God is a God who gives good gifts to His children. The word "bountifully" means to deal generously, lavishly. David knows that when God acts, He does not do things by half measures. He is a God of overwhelming, superabundant grace.
Conclusion: Your Cave and Your King
This psalm is an instruction for every Christian. You have a cave. Everyone has troubles big enough for them to notice. And if it is big enough to trouble you, it is big enough to trouble God with. You must learn, as David did, to see your cave not as the end of the story, but as the setting for a great deliverance.
When human help fails, and it will, you must make that great confession: "You are my refuge and my portion." You must learn to argue your weakness before God, knowing that His strength is made perfect in it. And you must look beyond the prison walls of your present trouble to the certain future that God has promised.
And we have a greater assurance than even David did. We know that the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, entered the ultimate cave. He was abandoned by all, surrounded by enemies too strong for Him, and brought very low, even to death on a cross. He was laid in the prison of a borrowed tomb. But God brought His soul out of that prison, not so He could merely give thanks, but so that He could become the object of all our thanks. And because He was raised, we know that God will deal bountifully with all who are in Him.
Because of Christ's resurrection, the righteous will indeed encircle us. We will stand in that great assembly of the saints, and we will sing the praises of the God who brought us out of our own caves and prisons. Therefore, whatever your cave is today, do not despair. Take up this psalm. Pray it, mean it, and watch God turn your prison into a platform for His praise.