Praise from the Pit to the Highest of Heaven

To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.

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.

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!

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.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

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.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

Let’s just bow our heads again and ask for the Lord’s help especially.

Father, we come before you. We thank you for this time in this place with each other, and we just pray that as we look at your word, might your word do what it has been set out to accomplish. Might it encourage, might it challenge, might it cut us. And above all, Father, as we have already sung this morning, might it turn our eyes to Jesus, our beautiful Saviour, who loves us, who’s with us, and who provides every need for us. We pray, Father, that your word would do its work among us. In Jesus’ name we pray this morning. Amen.

I’m going to start with a question, and it’s maybe a strange question to ask on a Sunday morning, and maybe I’ll not be invited back tonight after I ask it. But I wonder this morning, can you pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time? Can you pat your head and rub your tummy? And you might think — maybe the older members of the congregation are going, what on earth is happening? And maybe not try now; you can try later when you get home.

But the reason I ask you that, can you pat your head and rub your tummy, is that those are two things that are considered quite difficult to do at the same time. Two things that you can try later, if you can accomplish it, but two things that are sometimes impossible for certain people to do. And as we come to Psalm 57 this morning, it presents two things that we might think are impossible to do at the same time: be at rock bottom, be in a pit, be in a cave in the ground, but yet praise God. We might think that praising God means life has to be going well, things have to be going good. But what we see in Psalm 57 is this tension in the life of David, that things could not get worse for him, but yet he can open his mouth, and from the pit of his despair he can praise God.

And what I want us to see this morning is just on the screen: Praise from the Pit to the Highest of Heaven. We’re going to be looking at the first section, A Prayer from the Pit, and then we’ll look later at Praise to the Highest of Heaven.

And that raises the question, where do the best songs come from? At what times in our lives is the praise that we give to God at its best or at its peak? And we might surely think, yes, when things are going good. Whenever things are going good, we recognise our circumstances, we see what God is doing in our lives, and so we have things to praise him for, things to thank him for. But whenever we look at Scripture, whenever we look at church history, whenever we look at our own lives, yes, there are many things to be thankful for whenever the Lord is blessing us and that blessing is evident. But there are also times in our lives whenever we will feel at rock bottom, and yet we are still to praise God.

When we think about Scripture, we think about Jonah. When did Jonah cry out to God? When did Jonah pray to God? It wasn’t when he was on dry land. It wasn’t when he was on a ship. It’s when he was in the belly of a fish deep in the sea. When we think of Paul and Silas, when did they cry out praise to God? Whenever they were in prison. Whenever we think of our own Lord Jesus, were there ever more God-glorifying, God-honouring words ever prayed or ever spoken than while he was in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating blood? “Not my will, but yours, be done,” he said to his Father.

Not only Scripture testifies to this, but church history, songwriters. We all know that song, It Is Well with My Soul, but that was written at a time when Horatio Spafford had just lost his wife and lost his children.

One of the books I managed to read over the summer was a biography of the missionary John Paton. John Paton was a missionary to a place called the New Hebrides, just off the coast of Australia, now called Vanuatu. In 1839, two predecessors of his went out from the London Missionary Society to be missionaries there, and they were eaten by cannibals within minutes of landing on that island.

And whenever John Paton decided that was the Lord’s plan for his life, the Lord’s will for his life, to go and take the gospel to these people, he stood up in church and he told his church of what he had decided. And one very enthusiastic member of the congregation came to him and said, “You’ll be eaten by cannibals!” And here we get one of the most amazing quotes from all of missionary history. John Paton replies to this guy and he says, “Mr Dickson, you are very advanced in years, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave and to be eaten by worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or eaten by worms.” Is that incredible?

But as Mr Dickson rightly predicted, things were not going to be easy for John Paton. One year into his mission, sadly, his wife died. Two months after that, his two-month-old son also died. And he dug their graves with his own hands and buried them himself. And this is what he records in his diary. He says this: “I felt the loss beyond all conception and description in that dark land. It was very difficult to be resigned, left alone and in sorrowful circumstances, but feeling immovably assured that my God and Father was too wise and loving to err in anything he does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help and I struggled on in his work.”

If there ever was a prayer from the pit, surely it is that prayer of John Paton. And as we read the words of Psalm 57, that’s exactly the situation that David finds himself in. Literally, David is in a cave. Literally, David issues a prayer and praise from the pit, from where he is.

Sometimes, whenever we come to a little section of the Bible, we can see a natural break in it, and so we’re going to be looking at this in two sections. We get a little repeated refrain in verses 5 and verse 11: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!” So we’ll look at verses 1 to 5, and then we’ll look at verses 6 to 11.

A prayer from the pit

So verses 1 to 5, a prayer from the pit.

Now, we’re given a little bit of context in this psalm. The very little tiny words you see just beside the 57 in your Bible give us a hint as to when this psalm was written, what stage, what is the context behind it. And we are told that it is to the choirmaster, according to this tune, Do Not Destroy. It’s a miktam, or a type of song, written by David, and we are told it’s when he fled from Saul in the cave. There is an incident in the book of 1 Samuel chapter 22 — we’ll not turn there now, but you can look at it later when you go home — 1 Samuel chapter 22, whenever David finds himself in a cave.

And the background to that is David is God’s anointed king. David has been told that he is the true king of God’s people, that he will be on the throne, that his descendants will inherit that throne. He’s been told by Samuel that he is the king, but yet he’s not yet on the throne. Saul is still the king on the throne, and so David is waiting. He’s biding his time. He knows that God has made this promise to him, but he just needs to wait for that promise to come true.

But as he waits, you can imagine that this relationship between this anointed king and the current king is not good. In fact, Saul hates David. Saul wants David to be put to death, and so Saul is throwing everything he’s got at finding David and getting rid of him, that Saul might be the king.

And in 1 Samuel 22, what has just happened is David’s kind of been captured by an ally of Saul, King Achish of Gath. He pretends to be mad so he can escape, and he flees, and he runs to a cave, and he hides there. And the next day, 1 Samuel 22 tells us, he’ll be joined by 600 men and his family. His family, his brothers, their friends and their family will come, and they will be with David, and they’ll help David. But it seems that this first night, David is absolutely alone. Alone and hiding in this deep, dark pit in the ground. And yet, what does he do? He prays.

And what does David pray? What are we to pray whenever we find ourselves in a similar situation? Well, David teaches us. David prays the attributes of God. Whenever David is at the end of his tether, whenever he’s at the end of himself, he remembers in his prayer who God is and what God is like.

So let’s look down at verse 1. Where does David begin? He begins with reminding himself that God is merciful.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me.

David’s prayer begins where all good prayers should begin, remembering that God is merciful, remembering that God is gracious.

Now, David is one of the standout heroes of the Bible, isn’t he? He’s the guy that everybody wants to be like. Whenever you talk about the Bible, he’s one of the most famous characters. But David’s no perfect man, and we know that all too well. He’s not a sinless soul. He’s a mortal man like you and me who, yet while he was so good and clung to God and had a heart after the things of God, he was a sinner.

So why would God listen to David? Why would God care what’s going on in the life of David? Why would God listen to the pleas of this man from this pit? Well, it’s this simple reason: that God is merciful.

You see, whenever we pray to God, it’s not us speaking to our equal. God and ourselves are not on the same plane. David and God are not on the same plane. It’s not a dialogue between equals. It’s somebody in a pit, somebody in a cave, crying out to the holy God. There’s that geographical aspect of this too, that in his sin, in his brokenness and in his geography, David is literally as far away from God as he could ever be, in a hole in the ground, and God inhabits the highest of heaven.

And so David remembers that as he dwells in this deep pit, as he hides in this cave, he remembers the distance between him and God. And he knows the only reason that God will listen, the only reason that he can cry out to God and that God will answer and that God will do something, is because God is merciful.

Why would God listen to you this morning? Why would God listen to us as we pray to him, as we’ve already done in our service? For the very simple reason that he’s a merciful God, that he is a gracious God. And that’s important for us, because often when life is not going well, often when things are messed up, we feel burdened, we feel alone. And sometimes we search ourselves and we ask the question, why would God listen to me?

And the answer is that God does not listen to you because of who you are, but he listens to you because of who he is. He is a God of infinite mercy, of infinite grace, and whenever we need God, he doesn’t listen to us because we’re important or we’re precious to him. He listens to us because that is his character, because he is merciful. David prays to the God who is merciful.

The second thing that David remembers is not only is God merciful, but that God is absolutely trustworthy, that God is absolutely trustworthy. We’re still in verse 1. What does he say?

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge.

Now, as we’ve said, where is David? He’s in a cave. He’s safe and secure. He’s hidden away from these people who would seek to kill him and to pursue him. He’s hidden in this stone structure, but David knows that actually it’s not these walls of stone that keep him safe. It’s not the fact that he is hidden away in a cave. That’s not why he can rest and he can be secure. He knows that his true security is found in trusting God, that he is dwelling in and that he is safe and taking refuge in God.

And not only can God be trusted with David’s mortal body, not only can God be trusted with this night that David spends in this cave, or the next day, but what does David entrust to God? He gives him his soul. “My soul takes refuge in you.” David says, the most precious thing I have, God, the most precious thing that I own, my soul, my eternity, my future forever and ever and ever, that’s what I trusted you for, God. That’s what I give to you.

Putting your soul into the care of God, says David, is the most secure that you can be. It’s the best refuge that you can have. And it would make sense for us that we would be challenged by that. Have we put our souls into the care of God? The most precious thing that God has given us, our eternity forever, have we put that into the care of God? Because, as David says, it’s the best and the most trustworthy place to put it. He’s the only person that can look after us for all of eternity. Put our soul into the care of God.

David continues in verse 1:

In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.

And here David turns to poetry to express what God is like, a God who has wings, wings that are loving, wings that are kind. And you might think this morning, well, actually, are wings really that strong? Are wings really that impressive? The point that David is making here is not what we’re under, but who we’re under. If we were even under the little finger of God, we would be immensely safe and secure. But David uses this imagery of wings to remind us of comfort, to remind us of a safe place.

In the Gospels, in Matthew 23, Jesus says this:

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!

Jesus uses this image of wings in the New Testament. This place where God has put David is not a desolate, dry wilderness, but this place where David is, where David dwells secure, is a place of comfort, a place of safety, a place of warmth, a place of love. Not a harsh place, but a loving place.

And David says these wings of God are so good, these wings of God are so secure, that he will stay there until the destruction passes by. Here we see in Psalm 57 what the ultimate storm shelter is: the wings of God, taking God as our refuge. David says, I will stay here, God, until these people who are pursuing me, until this trouble that I am facing, until it blows over, until it blows by. You see, David is clinging to that promise that he will be the king, that God will promise him the throne, that he can trust that God will make good his promises.

And while this trouble brews, and while these people seek to kill him, he can remain in safety and in comfort while waiting, while all this whirls on and whirls around him. Charles Wesley put it this way in his famous hymn, Jesus, Lover of My Soul. He says, “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly, while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high. Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, till the storm of life is past.”

It’s good to know that when things are not going well, whenever we find ourselves in a pit, in a cave, whenever the world around us seems to be turmoil and high seas and stormy, that God is a shelter that we can run to while the storms pass us by. And we’ve some good news, because we’ve just made it through verse 1 and there’s more verses to go. Such truth, such help for us as we face the difficulties of life.

Verse 2: what does David do? He continues to cry out, cry out to God.

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

And again, as David is in this cave, as David is in this pit, he can pray these words knowing that God is working for him, that God will accomplish his purposes for him. The ESV: “God who fulfills his purpose for me.” The NASB puts it this way: “to God who accomplishes all things for me.”

One of my favourite verses in the Bible, and one of the most famous, and I’m sure if we went around and asked here, it would be one of yours, is Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good.” And here in Psalm 57, verse 2, we see the Old Testament version of that. Even though David is in this cave, even though he’s hiding, even though he’s being pursued, even though it seems that his life is over, he knows that God is working for him, that God is working for his good.

David can trust in God. He can sit in this shelter. He can wait for the storms to pass by, because he knows that God will not leave him, that God will not leave his promises half fulfilled, that God will keep on working, and that God can be trusted with David’s soul, but that God can also be trusted to work out the finer details of David’s life as well. The God who accomplishes all things for him.

And as David sits in this cave, as he ponders his future, as he thinks, what will the night bring, what will tomorrow bring, he remembers who his God is. He prays the attributes of God, and in verse 3, he remembers that God is a God of action: that God is not a God that, whenever you cry out to him, sits back, takes it easy, doesn’t come to your aid. No, David says that God will send from heaven to save him.

He will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!

Those verses remind me of Exodus 14:14, as God’s people come to the sea and they’re asked the question, what will we do? And Moses says, “The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still.” David is hiding in this cave. He’s not sure what the night will bring, but what he is sure of is that all those people who pursue him, all those people who hunt him down — that God will work, that God will send from heaven, that God will save him, and God will put to shame all those who trample on him.

One of my favourite genres of book or movie is a murder mystery. I remember sitting in a coffee shop once in England, and I was reading a book called Murder Most Festive, and somebody took great offence that I would think there’s anything festive about murder. But I explained to the lady the reason I like murder mysteries is this: because justice is always done. There is a horrendous crime, horrible sin, but there is a detective who works, who figures it all out, and at the end, the murderer is caught, they’re apprehended, and they will face justice for their crimes.

And so here David also prays to the God of justice, the God who sorts everything out, the God who takes the righteous and upholds them and sustains them, and the God who takes the guilty and the sinful, and they are dealt with. Sinful people do not get away with their sins, but God will sort them out in his justice. Those who trample on David will be trampled on. They will be put to shame.

And so David ends this little section by saying, “God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!” God’s steadfast love. God’s faithful love. The never-giving-up love of God. A love that is promised. A love that is guaranteed. A love that is not there one second and gone the next. A love that lasts. He trusts the promise of God.

And as David sits in this cave, as he thinks about who the Lord is, what the Lord is like, the attributes of God, suddenly in verse 4, things change. Because it’s almost as if David is in this cave, he’s talking about the attributes of God, the beauties of God, the reason he loves and praises God, but in verse 4, we get an interruption where David suddenly remembers where he is. He suddenly remembers what is going on. Nearly he despairs. In verse 4, if you look down at that:

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.

You might read the beginning of verse 4 and you might think, what dreadful beasts are pursuing David? Lions, fiery lions, are coming after him. You know, we’ve all heard of Daniel in the lions’ den. Here we read of David in the lions’ den. And as we think of David in this cave hiding, and these beasts prowling around outside seeking his life, we think, what kind of animals are these? What kind of beasts are these?

And then we get to the third line of verse 4. They’re not beasts at all. They’re men. Men who are coming after David. Men who are pursuing him. Men who want to consume him like a wild animal, want to consume him like fire. But look, what does David fear the most about these men? What is David most worried about? It’s their words, isn’t it? “The children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.”

They are literally fiery beasts coming after David, but what David is most fearful of, and what David fears the most, are their words. David doesn’t fear their teeth, he doesn’t fear their fieriness, but he fears what they will say to him.

Here we find help from Spurgeon. This is what he says in his Treasury of David. He says, “Malicious men carry a whole armoury in their mouths. They have no molars; all their teeth are canine. As for that busy member, the tongue, in the case of a malicious man, it is a two-edged, keen-cutting, killing sword. The tongue, which here is compared to a sword, has the adjective sharp added to it, to show that if men were actually to tear us with their teeth, they could not thereby wound us so severely as they can do with their tongues.” Spurgeon has this great sentence. He says, “No weapon is so terrible as a tongue sharpened on the devil’s grindstone.”

As we think about David’s situation this morning, unless you’ve lived an extraordinarily adventurous life, I would dare to guess that perhaps you haven’t been pursued by an army, that you’ve never literally had to hide for your life in a cave. But maybe here is where we find a little bit of commonality with David, because I’m sure all of us here have had words spoken about us, harsh, evil words. Words by a family member, words by a friend, words by enemies, even words whispered in our ear by our enemy the devil.

Because what David fears most are the words of these men who will come to him and they will say, you’re not the king. God has finished with you, David. Look at your life. There is no hope for you, David. Look, would God lead you to this place? Would God leave you and abandon you in a cave? You might as well give up. The promises of God will never come true for you, David. That’s what he fears. These men with their tongues will come and they will cut him.

And so it’s true of us, as we live our Christian lives and the devil whispers in our ear: Why would God care about you? Why would God forgive you? You’re such a horrible sinner. Why would God have anything good planned for you? Why would God save you? Maybe God’s given up on you. Look at your life, look at the terrible things that are happening. Maybe God has abandoned you to them.

Here is where we find this sense of what David is going through, these wicked words that we hear, these wicked words that are spoken on us. As we think about the Lord Jesus Christ, we think about what he went through on the cross, and the cruelty and the barbarism and the painful physical agony of it. Yet I imagine that the words that Jesus heard as the crowd said, “Crucify him, crucify him,” were just as painful.

See, words hurt, words can stick, words can come back to our remembrance. What David fears is the enemy’s words that God is finished with him. Maybe you feel that this morning as you came to church. Who do you think you are, going to church? God doesn’t want you here. If only these people in the pews beside you knew what you were truly like, they wouldn’t welcome you as they do. Who are you to take of the Lord’s table? Who are you to take communion this morning?

But it’s here we remember the words of Jesus, the words of Jesus to all of us. Why did he come into the world? Why did he come and die? Well, he did it for sinners. And if you admit your sin, then you’re welcome to come and to eat and to drink at the table. You’re welcome to come into this place trusting in the blood and trusting in the cross of Christ.

Spurgeon helpfully finishes his little section on these words by quoting Isaiah 54. He says:

No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment.

Sometimes we hear the worst words, the most awful words that Satan comes and whispers in our ear. But that’s why, like David, we must remember who God is: a merciful God, a loving God, a God who can be trusted even with our soul, a God who invites us to take shelter under his wings.

And David ends this little section in verse 5 and says:

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

That’s David’s prayer from the pit.

Praise to the highest of heaven

Let’s quickly look at verses 6 to 11, and let’s see his praise to the highest of heaven. As David sits in this cave, as he sits in this pit, as he remembers those who attack him, he remembers the words that they might say to him, yet he praises God.

But in verse 6, you might think he’s going into that spiral again. He’s remembering God in verses 1 to 3. In verse 4, he suddenly remembers his situation and he is pulled back down to earth with a thud. But in verse 5, he lifts his eyes to praise again, and you might think in verse 6, well, he’s forgotten all those things. He’s turned his eyes back to his situation. And so often we do that in our own lives, don’t we? We remember the glories of God, our eyes are drawn back to our own desperate situation, we forget, we turn our eyes away from God, and God graciously lifts our eyes to see who he is again.

Verse 6, David remembers his enemies:

They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way.

And we get all these problems that are going on in the life of David, but yet, at the end of verse 6, he seems to reconcile the two of them. How is God at work in this situation? How is God able to take David, who’s in this pit, to get him to look and to praise to heaven, and get him to reconcile what the difficulty is in his life, and yet praise God at the same time? Because at the end of verse 6, the two situations marry themselves. Even though these enemies have dug a pit in the way of David, even though David sees the net that has been set for him, even though his soul is bowed down, he remembers that the wicked will not prosper. He says, “But they have fallen into it themselves.”

And we get that little word selah, which is a little musical instruction, a little pause. And as David considers his enemies, as he remembers what he has just prayed about those who seek to trample on him, that God will put them to shame, he remembers that even though his enemies are mighty, his enemies are strong, his enemies have dug a pit in his way, God will work, God will act, his enemies will fall into that pit themselves.

And so David is now resolute. Even though he sees the danger before him, he sees the reason that he’s been brought down so low, yet knowing that God is a God who does not sit back, knowing that God is a God who works for his good, who will accomplish all things for him, in verse 7 he says, “My heart is steadfast.” My heart is unmoved, O God. My confidence is in you. Even though my enemies come and they jeer and they taunt, even though I’m hiding in this cave, even though I am here and I would long to be out of here, my situation has me at rock bottom, but I know that God has not abandoned me. I know that God has not left me, and I can sit here in this cave, and I can praise you to the highest of heaven. I can say that my heart is steadfast, that I have confidence in God, because I know that you’re working for my good.

And not only does David pray this in verse 7, not only does he just say, “My heart is steadfast, my heart is steadfast,” he says, “I will sing and make melody!” And here we have this beautiful picture of David, a hunted man in a cave, at the worst point, the lowest point of his life. But yet, because he remembers who God is and what God is like, he can sit in a cave and he can sing. He can make melody with his voice.

In verse 8, he says, “Awake, my glory!” David, wake up, remember who God is, remember what God is like. “Awake, O harp and lyre!” We don’t even know if he has any instruments with him. We don’t know if he has a harp or has a lyre, but yet he wants them to wake up. He wants them to join him in the praising of God, because David knows that he will get through this. David knows that this is not the end of his story, that God has made him a promise, and that God will see him safely through.

And so at the end of verse 8, he says, “I will awake the dawn!” As David is in this pit, hunted, he will lay his head down, he will go to sleep, confident that because God is at work, because God is working on behalf of him, he will go to sleep and he can wake up again.

Finally this morning, let’s just look at verses 9 to 11, because they teach us something helpful as we go through difficulties and as we go through problems in our lives. Because David knows that this moment in his life is not a moment for him to keep to himself. It’s not a private moment of prayer. It’s not a private moment of God preserving him and helping him. But it’s a moment to be shared. So in verse 9, if you look down there, he says:

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

David knows what the Lord has done, and the Lord’s testimony of his faithfulness and goodness, the fact that the Lord is working on behalf of David, that he will send from heaven and help him. David is not going to keep this to himself, but David is going to share it.

And he says, God, whenever I get out of this cave, whenever all your promises for me come true, whenever the promise that one day I will sit on that throne — whenever that happens, whenever I have that seat among the people, whenever I am their king — Lord, I will make sure that they know about it. I will make sure that I lead as a king who leads my people in the praises of God. I will give thanks to you not only in this cave, O Lord, but whenever I am out of this, whenever the storms of destruction have passed by, I will praise you. And not only to his own people, not only to the people of Israel, but at the end of verse 9: “I will sing praises to you among the nations.”

That the nations around Israel, the nations around the world, will know of the steadfast love of God, because David says, this is not news that I should keep to myself. And as we think about our own lives, the testimony that God has worked in us is not news for us to keep to ourselves. It’s news to be shared. It’s news to be proclaimed as part of the Great Commission initiative that Jesus has sent us on, to go and make disciples, proclaiming the testimony of God to the world: how God has worked in our lives, how God has sustained us, how God has worked in us, how God has taken us as sinners and forgiven us and given us an inheritance that is not our own.

What glorious, great news! Because whenever we go on mission, we just don’t proclaim a God of facts or a God of the abstract. Tell people how God has been at work in our own lives. And just as David prays, whenever he gets out of this cave, whenever these troubles go and leave him, and whenever he is able to share of his experience of the goodness of God, he says he will. And the same is true of us, but not only in mission, but also in our church, in this place with each other. As people who have seen the goodness of God at work in our lives, it’s our duty to encourage one another with those stories of goodness, encourage one another with how the Lord has brought us safely through the difficulties, the promises that he’s given to us, the ways that he’s worked in our lives, that together as his people, together as a church, we could be encouraged by him.

David finishes with that little refrain in verse 11:

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

David’s still in that pit. He’s still in the cave. He’s still being surrounded by those fiery beasts who seek to destroy him, who seek to set fire to him, who seek to use their tongues for wickedness. Nothing has changed in this psalm. David’s situation has not yet changed. He has hope. He’s clinging to the promise that it will change, that God will send from heaven, that God will help. But in verse 11, David’s still in the pit. And yet he prays, “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!”

So great are you, God. So wonderful are you, God. So great is your mercy and your trustworthiness and your salvation, that I will praise you from this pit, and I will praise you as the King who rules over all the earth.

It is possible to be at the lowest point in your life, to be in the pit, but yet to praise God, to extol and to worship him, and to remind him that his glory covers over all the earth. David in the cave praises God to the highest heaven: that God is magnificent, that God is amazing, that God is at work, that God has not abandoned David, but that God will do all things for David’s good and for his glory.

I don’t know many of you this morning. I don’t know what pits you might find yourself in. I don’t know what trouble might be happening to you at the minute, whether that’s current, whether that’s next week, whether that’s next month. But I hope that the comfort that Psalm 57 gives us reminds us that even when we’re at rock bottom, we can praise God. That even when we’re in the pit, we can lift his name high, because he is a good God who loves us.

Just before I finish, let me just go back to our missionary friend John Paton. John Paton lived for many years in the New Hebrides, but he tells in his diaries of one night whenever he was told by a local chieftain that the local villagers were coming to kill him. Now, he wasn’t sure whether he could trust this chieftain, but he took him at his word, and he records this in his diary. He says this:

“Being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends, I, though perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed up into the tree and was left alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if they were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets and the yells of savages. I sat there among the branches, yet as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never in all my sorrows did my Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly in my soul than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves and the night air played on my throbbing brow as I told my heart to Jesus alone. Alone in that tree, but yet not alone.

“If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Saviour’s spiritual presence, to enjoy his consoling friendship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight of the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a friend that will not fail you then?”

So far, Psalm 57 has given us great comfort as Christians, to know that if we were ever alone at the bottom of our lives, at the despairing point of our lives, we have a God that we can call to, that we can pray to. But as John Paton reminds us, as he was stuck up a tree in fear of his life, he has a question for anybody this morning who isn’t a Christian, a question for anyone who doesn’t trust in God. And he simply asks you the question, have you a friend like God? Have you a friend that, whenever life hits the rocks, whenever everything is thrown up in the air, have you a friend that, even when you are all alone, you are not alone?

Or if life was to go belly up for you this morning, if things were to go pear-shaped and you were to hit rock bottom, would you be all alone, without anyone? Psalm 57 reminds us that life has its ups and has its downs, that storms come, that troubles come even for those who love the Lord. And yet we have a friend who sticks closer than a brother. We have a friend who will not leave us. We have a God who will not forsake us, a God that we can call out to.

Can you call out to him this morning? Can you ask that God for help? Do you trust in him? Do you know his Son? Has he forgiven you for your sin? Do you love God? Is he working for your good? Are you, whenever you are alone, alone? Or are you, whenever you are alone, never alone?

Let me pray.

Father, we thank you for your word to us this morning. We thank you for this psalm of David, the point in his life whenever things could not get worse. And we thank you for the comfort that it brings to us. We thank you for the friend that we have in Jesus, a friend who is with us, a friend that sustains us, a friend who will not abandon us.

And we pray, Father, that wherever we are with you, wherever our lives are currently, you would bring this psalm to our remembrance. You would bring this psalm to our aid, that if we were ever to be in that pit, in that cave, in that deep, damp darkness, we might know that we have a friend and that we are never alone. We pray this in the name of Jesus who loves us. Amen.