This morning we are in Psalm 57, Psalm 57, a glorious psalm, a helpful psalm, a practical psalm, a psalm of joy and grace and praise in the midst of difficulty, Psalm 57. Let's stand as I read this psalm. It says that it is for the choir director. This part isn't inspired, but it's helpful. It's for the choir director. It's set to a tune called Do Not Destroy, Al Tashkhet. It's written by David and the indication is when he fled from Saul in the cave. Now, for those words that are inspired and inerrant and infallible, hear God's word, Psalm 57. Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in you. And in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge until destruction passes by. I will cry to God Most High, to God who accomplishes all things for me. He will send from heaven and save me. He reproaches him who tramples upon me." Selah. God will send forth his loving kindness and his truth. My soul is among lions. I must lie down among those who breathe forth fire, even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword. Be exalted above the heavens, O God. Let your glory be above all the earth. They have prepared a net for my steps. My soul is bowed down. They dug a pit before me. They themselves have fallen into the midst of it. Selah. My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing, yes, I will sing praises. Awake my glory, awake harp and lyre. I will awaken the dawn. I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praises to you among the nations, for your lovingkindness is great to the heavens and your truth to the clouds, be exalted above the heavens, oh God, let your glory be above all the earth. So far God's word, let us pray. Heavenly Father, open our hearts, help us to receive this challenge, this rejoicing, this joy, this commitment to love you and to rejoice in you no matter what destruction we see on the way. In Jesus' precious name we pray, amen. Please be seated. What a glorious Psalm is this. Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in you. And in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge until the destruction passes by. Toward the end of his life, we meditated on a couple of his verses at the end of 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel 22. And in those next few verses, three and four, it uses these words again, the refuge, taking refuge. Here is David seeing destruction on the way. Until destruction passes by, he sees it on the way and so he runs into the shadow of the wings of God Almighty. His soul takes refuge in a cave, quite likely, But the rocks aren't going to protect him. The depth of the cave isn't going to protect him. The opening in the front of the cave isn't going to protect him, especially if all he has is 400 men sitting in the back of the cave and the army of 3,000 trained men are coming at him to the mouth of the cave, which if it was the cave of En Gedi, that was the situation. But he doesn't take primarily refuge in the cave. And you see that in the words of Psalm 57. My soul, I, my soul, I take refuge in you. And in the shadow of your wings, I take refuge. Calamity is on the way. Calamity is threatening him in the form of King Saul's hot pursuit of him. Saul wants him dead. And as the first king of Israel, he seems to have the power to carry that out. He has soldiers from the tribe of Benjamin, his tribe, and some of these guys could use slings and hit a hare with it. A lot of them were left-handed, and they were great warriors. Saul has devised evil in his heart, but God hasn't devised evil in his heart. God never devises evil in his heart. God, even when he sends calamity, it's a really good word, calamity upon those he loves, when he carefully places calamity in the lives of those for whom Jesus died, such as Job, he's not devising evil. He never does evil. He never sends evil. That's why it is good to use the word calamity. And calamity translates the word many times in the Old Testament, it's the word for evil. But if it's God that's doing it, you know it's not evil in your life. There is a purpose in it. And so Psalm 57 says, and so Romans 8 says as well. When destruction threatens, David runs into calamity cave. So if you're going to look at the children's challenge page there. I would hope you can remember this cave. I call it Calamity Cave and it's got 57 written across the top of it. Maybe 57, some of you can remember it better looking at a 57 Chevy. There is a cave in the map, Cave of Adullam and if you went straight across to the right from there on the side of the Dead Sea there's the Cave of En-Gedi which is not marked. but quite possibly is where he ran. Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, he says as he runs into the cave, for my soul takes refuge in you, and in the shadow of your wings I take refuge until destruction passes by. You know, as many times as I've read Psalm 46, As much as I love to think about God being our refuge, I love numbers. I would love to write a book on numbers, on Bible study on numbers. I love the cities of refuge. You know, it wasn't until Friday, I think, that I realize that if I run into, under the wings of the Almighty, if I run into Him, His name as a high tower, as my protection, that I am a refugee. I hadn't thought about that before. It's a new idea to me. It's a precious idea to me that every day I get to be a refugee to run into the name of God Almighty. King James says, Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee. ESV says, Be merciful to me, O God, in the NIV. Have mercy on me, have mercy on me. The word is grace, and I think the NASB has done a good job there, but either one, grace and mercy, it all is from the Lord, and in this case, it means essentially the same thing. This is the soul of a saint calling upon his covenant Lord when he is under attack. Oh God, our covenant God. Look at the way the Lord is addressed in Psalm 57, O God, God Most High, God or Lord, O God Elohim, God Most High, Elohim Elyon, God the short form of Elohim, El and Adonai. Now the word Jehovah is not in this Psalm and I think that's because as Palmer Robertson has pointed out to us, that in this section of the Psalter, book two, he's really talking, he's communicating with the nations, with the peoples out there. Another insight from this week, he wanted, David wanted to get the word out to the nations, and that's what he says here in Psalm 57. He wants to get it out to the peoples, to the nations. And it was pointed out to me by one of the old commentators that David died, he stopped singing here on earth, but his psalms are being sung around the world today. So David is still testifying to the peoples and the nations, including peoples and nations in South Carolina. David is speaking directly to God in verse 1 and he concludes by speaking directly to God in verse 9. His refrain or his chorus as some very, very well have called it, speaks directly to God in the middle in verse 5 and then again at the end in verse 11. In fact, if you mark the names of God with a rectangle and this Psalm is about God, this is about David's relationship, his soul, his heart in relationship to God. If you marked every time God is mentioned by name, El Elohim, El Elyon or Adonai in this Psalm as I suggested in it's Wednesday but Sunday's coming, you will mark it nine times and then if you also mark he and him and you and your pronouns referring specifically to God you will mark it 21 times. That was pointed out to me by Jim Boyce, James Boyce, he's now with the Lord but he was pastor at 10th Presbyterian PCA in Philadelphia. Pronouns like he and his and you and your refer to God. If you counted all those together with the names of God, 21 times in 11 verses. If you circle the reference to the very core of David's being, you would mark my soul, my soul, my heart, and my heart. And so this psalm is all about a child of God talking directly to God. talking about his relationship about God, and talking about the difficulties he's in, in spite of being under the wings of Almighty God. It's about grace. Be gracious to me, or be merciful to me. My soul takes refuge in you. Grace and mercy. The word here is chen, grace. We have spread the name of God's grace among the English-speaking world from the time of the Reformation, especially to the middle of the 20th century, all over the world, and especially in the English-speaking world. I know more about English than a lot of those other languages. By naming our boys and girls with names that refer to this word, grace, be gracious unto me, be merciful unto me. Names like John and Joan and Jean and Jack and Jackie and Jeanette and Jeannie and Jan and Jonnet, which is one of our ancestors names, Joanna and Hannah and Anna and Hananiah, who was also called Shadrach, somebody who did not believe in God, and Ananias as in the one married to Sapphira, and Hannibal, and in French Jean, and Jean d'Arc, Joan of Arc as we say, and then there's Juan, and Juana, and Juanita in Spanish, and Ioannes in Hebrew, and in the New Testament, and Ivan, and Ivanov, and Ivanova, and In Irish, there's Shane, Sean in Gaelic, Jock and Evan in Scottish. And there are many more in many languages. In the writing, I don't know how to pronounce it. From 1550 to the middle of the 20th century, the two most popular boys' names in the English-speaking world jockeyed, you might say, between John and William. And in the U.S., John was annually the favorite name of boys up until 1924. We may have taken a turn since then. We humans need God. We image bearers of God, marred by Adam's sin, need God's grace. And so here the psalm, as it starts out, be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me. Or be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me. For my soul takes refuge in you. When I find refuge in the Bible, I put brackets around it. I find refuge. My soul takes refuge. So circle my soul and then put brackets around refuge. And in the shadow of your wings, another refuge with brackets around it. I take refuge again until destruction passes by. Be gracious, be merciful. Hear the Canaanite woman. When Jesus entered into that part of the land outside of original Israel, that had been ruled by Jezebel's father at one point. Canaanite woman who said, have mercy on me. Lord, son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon possessed. Hear the man calling upon Jesus right after Jesus' transfiguration. Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and very ill, for he often falls into the fire and into the water. Hear the two blind men sitting on the side of the road just outside Jericho when Jesus walks by. have mercy on us, son of David. The Lord sternly told them to be quiet, but they cried out all the more, Lord, son of David, have mercy on us. Eleison hamas, kurye, huios David, or eleison kurye, or kurye eleison, Lord is Greek, you may have heard it in some other context, Lord, and you may have sung it, Lord have mercy on us, have mercy on me. We are an eleemosynary organization, did you know that? The first four letters of that word, three of the first four are E's. ELEE, because it comes from this ELEOS, have mercy on us, because we are declared, and we declare ourselves that we exist for the purpose of showing mercy, of showing charity, charis, copying Jesus, helping others, and we're written down that way in the law. Why? Because Jesus lives in you. because you want to live for Jesus, and because it makes a difference in how you live, graciously having received grace yourself. Psalm 57 is the heart of the believer calling out to his covenant God for grace and mercy. Have mercy, O God, on me. Have mercy on me. Can you not list at least 57 times the Lord has had mercy on you? 57 times that you have run in Calamity Cave when destruction was on its way, when something you knew was going to happen, and you couldn't stop it, and all you could do was pray, and you ran into Calamity Cave. You ran under the auspices of God, under the wings of the Almighty, and you prayed. Haven't you done that at least 57 times? Write it on your heart. sink it deep into your soul, carve it into the walls of Calamity Cave. How many times has the Lord answered my prayer and has come from heaven with his loving kindness and his truth to rescue me, to save me? How many times has he shown his love to me? Let me count the waves. Waves one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. And the first mark that you write on the cave will be written in red blood of the cross. But that's not the last mark. You've got at least 57 more where he has saved you over and over again. He sends his loving kindness and his truth or his faithfulness. Now, there's another word for you. You have chesed for loving kindness, and you probably know that. You've studied that in a Bible study, the loving kindness of the Lord, his covenantal faithfulness. It's a very important word. But the other one is Emmet, and you may know somebody named Emmet, which means truth or foundational faithfulness. And he sends those from heaven. He doesn't let you go. He doesn't let Saul kill you. He didn't let Saul come into the cave. Do you know what happened? David's in the cave. Saul with his 3,000 men are coming to find him. David's trapped in the cave with his men. Saul comes up to the cave. 1 Samuel 22 and 24. Comes up to the cave. He leaves his soldiers behind to go in. They didn't have too many outhouses back then. They didn't have rest areas along the way. He went in to relieve himself. That's about as vulnerable as you can get. And David comes close enough to him to cut off the hem of his rope. Destruction had been coming to David in the form of an army, the army of Israel, the army of the king of Israel. And God handles it, as he always handles it. Don't you know that? Isn't that your testimony? And you remember David was ashamed he did that because he had harmed, didn't kill him, didn't hurt him, didn't stab him, didn't yell at him, didn't scare him to death, didn't cause him to have a heart attack, but he cut off the hem of the robe of God's anointed. And he was ready to repent of that. Let's look at the structure of the psalm. Salvation, God's action on our behalf. He will send from heaven and save me, verse 3. He will send forth his loving kindness and his truth or his faithfulness, his hesed and his emet. There are two refrains. If you look sort of carefully at the Psalm, I think if you listen, you'll grow to love it. He has two refrains, verse 5 and verse 11. Be exalted. above the heavens of God, let your glory be exalted, be above all the earth. And verse 11, be exalted above the heavens of God, let your glory be above all the earth. So there are two sections. First section is one through four. And the second section, you know, divided between these two refrains or choruses, six through 10. Each of the two sections or stanzas has three parts. And the first stanza goes A, B, C, and then you have the chorus, and then it goes C, B, A. It runs like this. It starts out with God, with David praising God directly, speaking directly to him. Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge in you. He's talking to God personally, directly. And in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge until the destruction passes by. He's talking to God. And then in verses, that's A. And then section B of the first stanza is talking about his relationship with God. He's no longer talking to him, you and your, but he's talking about God and his relationship with him. I will cry to God most high, to God who accomplishes all things for me. Romans 8, 28 in the Old Testament. He will send from heaven and save me, the name of Jesus in that word. He reproaches him who tramples upon me. Selah, let's think about it. God will send forth his loving kindness and his truth, talking about what God's going to do. He prays directly to God, testimony about who God is, and then he focuses on the problem. C, the enemies. My soul is among lions. I must lie down among those who breathe out fire, breathe forth fire, even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue is a sharp sword. A, B, and C, you're going down from looking up to God to talking about his testimony down here on earth. to the destruction that's on its way. And then he takes a break and has a praise, verse 5, the refrain. Then 6, mirrors 4, so you go A, B, C, and then you stick with C about the enemies, nets and pits that they've fallen into themselves. And then you come back up to B, to a testimony. My heart is steadfast. God is faithful, so I am faithful. His testimony in verses 7 and 8. And then in 9 and 10, he's got his hands back up, focusing on God directly, talking to him personally and directly again. He says, I will give thanks to you, O God, among the peoples. I will sing praises. I will awaken the dawn, harp and lyre. I will sing praises to you among the nations. I'm going to testify your truth among the clouds. Then he has more praise in the refrain again. Praise and then testimony, then danger and challenge and destruction. And then continued focus on threatened attack and then you come back up to be testimony and then praise, praise, praise. Psalm 57 is first about God who is our personal protection in time of need. God, our covenant God, point one. He gives us his grace, point two. He is himself our calamity cave, point three. And he sends from heaven and saves us in his loving kindness, truth, and faithfulness, point four. Notice verse two again. I will cry unto God Most High, to God who accomplishes all things for me." This is the Old Testament or an Old Testament, Romans 828. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, all things. Now, all things isn't literally there in the passage, but it's a really good way to translate it. In Psalm 57, to God who accomplishes all things. He accomplishes all things for me, Romans 828. and why I chose Romans 8 to wrap around our pastoral prayer this morning. God does all things for me. He does not do evil, but he does send, intentionally send calamity into our lives. Look at the story of Job. Look at the story of Esther. Look at the Bible. That's the way it is. Look at your life. But he accomplishes all things. God does not do evil. Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? No. In all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. I remember fondly Jane Smith's frequent statement to me, more frequently as years went on. And I've heard it repeated, especially among the ladies of this congregation, over and over again. This too shall pass. You go into Calamity Cave and you can be sure in some way that you can't imagine like what happened to David when Saul came to kill him. you will be delivered and this too, this destruction will pass. We enter Calamity Cave with confidence and with prayer. We see on the wall 57 plus plus plus plus times that the Lord has saved us from peril. We state our faith in him. We ask for help. We go from praise to testimony to asking for help from spears and arrows and swords and pits and fire and teeth And we take a break and have praise. And then we ask for help again, describing our desperate situation, humanly speaking, in verse 6. And then we give our testimony. We cry out, He is faithful, and therefore we will be steadfast. And then we exit the cave saying, praise, praise, praise, Almighty God. I will give you thanks, O Lord, among the peoples, verse 9. I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your lovingkindness is great to the heavens and your truth to the clouds. Be exalted above the heavens, O God. Let your glory be above all the earth." When you're being trained to remember things quickly and in order, a major strategy is to have certain pictures in your mind with a number in the picture, like a picture of a bell man, a bellman in a uniform standing in front of a hotel, downtown center city somewhere like New York City, standing at attention at the end of the awning and that covers the area from the place where people get out of their cars, up the steps, into the hotel. And on the front of that awning is a seven. And then when you're given 10 or 20 things to remember and in order, and the seventh one you're supposed to remember is a grapefruit, you can immediately picture that bellman standing there with number seven up there on the awning, and he's holding a grapefruit. And you've got it. You'll know when they ask, what's number seven in your list? You go, grapefruit, I got it. I want you to think about Psalm 57 just that way. Remember this cave with 57 written on it. You can think about Heinz 57 if you want to. You can think about a 57 Chevrolet parked outside the cave there. You can think of the 57 marks that you've made inside the cave over the times the Lord has delivered you. But remember to run into a calamity cave with confidence and with prayer and with praise and expect to come out singing. Let's pray.