INTRODUCTION

This is a maskil, meaning a psalm of instruction. There is much for us to learn here. The occasion for it was when David was “in the cave,” with that being doubtless the time when Saul was in hot pursuit of him with 3,000 men. David was in a very low place, and this was compounded by the fact that he was in a very low condition, a very low way. But Scripture teaches us that “with the lowly is wisdom” (Prov. 11:2) Remember that the Lord has “respect unto the lowly” (Ps. 138:6)

THE TEXT

“Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave. I cried unto the Lord with my voice; With my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: Refuge failed me; No man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry; For I am brought very low: Deliver me from my persecutors; For they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: The righteous shall compass me about; For thou shalt deal bountifully with me” (Psalm 142). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This is a maskil about affliction, and who does not need to learn the lessons here? This is a prayer from a deep cave. David was in enough distress that he cried out to the Lord aloud (v. 1). He says this twice—he presented his supplication out loud. He did not pray about his troubles in a vague or general way—he poured them all out before the Lord (v. 2). He showed Jehovah all his troubles, and not because God needed the information. Rather it is because we need to see Him seeing it. David reminds himself that when his spirit was overwhelmed . . . God knew the steps of his path (v. 3). And the path that God knows is the same path where his enemies have laid their snares (v. 3). David looked at his right hand, where his defender should have been, and there was no one there (v. 4). All had abandoned him. Nobody cared (v. 4). Bereft of friends, he cried out to the Lord (v. 5), the God who was his refuge and his portion in this life (v. 5). He pleads with God to hear his cry. His first argument is his despondency (v. 6). His second argument is that he is very weak (v. 6). Bring me out of this prison/cave in order that I might praise Your name (v. 7). And then he turns, as on a dime. He ends on a confident and jubilant note . . . from the same cave. This deserted one will at some point be surrounded with righteous men (v. 7). And why? Because God is going to deal bountifully with him (v. 7).

NOBODY LOVES ME BUT MY MOTHER

There is a pitiful blues lament from B.B. King that we might remember here. “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too.” This is the dilemma of the psalmist in vv. 4-5. He looks around for support from friends, and he sees that he doesn’t have any.

This is a common theme in Scripture. We should not be surprised that Job experienced it (Job 6:15). The apostle Paul knew what this terrible experience was like also. Demas deserted him (2 Tim. 4:10). At his first defense, everyone was absent (2 Tim. 4:16). All of Paul’s friends in Asia had ditched him (2 Tim. 1:15).

And of course, the ultimate experience of this is seen in the passion of the Lord. The shepherd was struck, and all the sheep were scattered (Zech. 13:7). This is made more poignant in that Jesus saw that particular desertion coming (Matt. 26:31). Judas, who had been one of the twelve, betrayed Him with a kiss, a fact that Jesus noted (Luke 22:48). Peter, spokesman for the Twelve, and very loud in his professions of loyalty to the Lord, denied Him three times, and with curses (Mark 14:71). And at the final, fatal moment, Jesus turned and looked at him (Luke 22:61). 

“I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: They that did see me without fled from me” (Psalm 31:11). 

PRAYER ASCENDS

It is the nature of true prayer to rise, to ascend. And if all you have left is prayer, it is no argument to say that you are in a very low place. We sometimes joke that from “down here” there is no place to go but up. While that may or may not be true about you personally, it is always true about a sincere and heartfelt prayer. There is no place for such prayer to go, but up.

True prayers don’t puddle on the floor. They don’t sink down like a heavy gas. They don’t clatter when you drop them. 

ENVISIONING THE END

There are two sorts of imagining. One is the more common of the two, and can best be described as daydreaming. The second kind of imagining is that which sees Christ with the eye of faith. And when you see Christ, you see everything that comes with Him. When Christ delivers, He delivers in real time, in history. And so, when David lifted up his eyes at the end of the psalm, his eyes following his prayer, what did he see? He saw, with the eye of faith, how this trouble was going to turn out. He had been deserted by his sunshine friends, but one of the things he foresaw is that he was going to be surrounded by a crowd of righteous men. In the moment of desertion, it is a temptation to say there are no righteous men. There are no true friends. This is a lie. It is accurate to say that there are no true friends here, but there are true friends. Remember, David. Remember Jonathan, one of the truest friends in all of Scripture. 

And we all have a friend who is even truer than that. When we walk in the faith of Abraham we find that we have become friends with the Friend of Abraham (Jas. 2:23).

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INTRODUCTION

We now come to the final decade of psalms. We first began this series almost twenty years ago—when some of you young marrieds were still pre-school. This might make us feel odd in all sorts of ways, but one thing it should remind us of is the fact that Scripture is a vast storehouse of treasures, and one lifetime doesn’t even begin to touch it. 

THE TEXT

“Lord, I cry unto thee: Make haste unto me; Give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; And the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; Keep the door of my lips. Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: And let me not eat of their dainties. Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: And let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: For yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet. Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. But mine eyes are unto thee, O God the Lord: In thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute. Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape” (Psalm 141:1-10). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The psalmist is in real trouble, and he cries out to the Lord, urging the Lord to hurry up (v. 1). He asks the Lord to treat the prayer as incense, and the lifting of his hands as the evening sacrifice (v. 2).  He prays that God would set a guard over his mouth. This could be taken generally, but remember that he is the middle of praying (v. 3). He asks the Lord not to incline his heart to wickedness, or to become a companion of iniquitous men. He doesn’t want to share in their dainties (v. 4). He would rather a righteous man strike him than for a wicked man to feed him caviar (v. 5). A righteous blow would be a kindness. The psalmist prays against the wicked (v. 5). When their judges are thrown off a cliff, they will hear David’s words (v.  6). As when someone plows up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol (v. 7). This is likely the trouble that occasioned the psalm in the first place. But he still looks to the Lord, expecting deliverance (v. 8). His adversaries are cunning, and so he prays that he not fall into their traps and engines (v. 9). Not only does he seek deliverance, he asks that their wicked stratagems backfire on them (v. 10).

PALACE INTRIGUES

We cannot say definitively, but this psalm is likely from before David was king, when he was out in the wilderness, and Saul was still on the throne. David was out there because of Saul’s paranoia, and because of various lies told about him at court (1 Sam. 26:19). The fact that he wants his outstretched hands to serve as the evening sacrifice indicates that he is being kept away from the place of worship. The scattered bones around the mouth of Sheol some take as scattered bones because of the words of Saul, referring to the slaughter of the priests by Doeg the Edomite. Surrounding all of this, we can see that the plots David is concerned about here is appear to be schemes in the plans of the wicked party in Israel. The cause of God looks to be hanging by a thread.    

THE BLOWS OF A HAMMER

The ungodly could overthrow David in two ways. First, their plots and traps could work. Courageous men do not fear open battle, but they despise secret plots. One of the ways they could work is by provoking David into an exasperated and unguarded response. This is why he asks Jehovah to set a guard on his mouth. He does not want to be goaded into saying something stupid, which could be then twisted around and used against him. 

But he also knows that the reason for their antipathy is because he is on the Lord’s side. They could overcome him through an enticing and flattering bribery. Come, sit with us. Come, eat with us. Here is a platter filled with dainties. The temptation here is to turn coat, and David asks for protection from all of it—whether hostility or seduction. 

He knows the antithesis. When he says, “let the righteous strike me,” the word for strike is a forceful one, like a hammer blow (Is. 41:7). He would rather have that than to have a butler in the mansions of the wicked offer him a delectable delicacy. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you (Prov. 9:8). He knows the antithesis. When the tables finally turn, and the evil judges he is dealing with are thrown off a cliff, he knows that his words will be validated then. The word for overthrow is the same word that was used for pitching Jezebel down from the balcony (2 Kings 9:33).    

INCENSE RISING

The comparison of prayer to rising incense is made in various places in Scripture. “And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints” (Revelation 5:8). “And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand” (Revelation 8:4).

Following the suggestion of John Owen, if we compare our prayers to the offering of incense, we can take four spiritual lessons from it. 

First, the incense needed to be ground, crushed, or pounded before it was used. Don’t offer up wholesale prayers. Prayer must proceed from a contrite heart. Second, the incense is of no use whatever unless there is fire under it, and it needs to be fire from the altar. Third, the incense was designed to ascend into the heavens. Set your minds on things above. And last, it resulted in a sweet aroma before the Lord.

Christ is our ultimate prayer, and He was crushed for us (Luke 22:44). Christ came to earth to cast fire (Luke 12:49). Christ ascended into the heavenly places, there to intercede for us (Acts 1:9). And He was offered up to God as a sweet-smelling aroma (Eph. 5:2). We pray in the name of Christ because Christ is our ultimate prayer.

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