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The God Who Has a Knack for Showing Up in Caves (Psalm 142) · Prodigal Hope

0:00
SPEAKER_00: ... ... ... ... ...
0:28
SPEAKER_00: The title matters a lot.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: The title right before verse 1,
0:32
SPEAKER_00: at least in my Bible,
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SPEAKER_00: says this,
0:34
SPEAKER_00: a maskill of David,
0:36
SPEAKER_00: I'll explain that in a minute, a maskill of David when he was in the cave, a prayer.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Now the term masculine is often interpreted,
0:45
SPEAKER_00: it's kind of this term, this Hebrew term that's not often, always agreed upon.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: But generally it is understood as a term of instruction.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: As if this song was written for the instruction, the benefit of others.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: But I think obviously what stands out to me,
1:03
SPEAKER_00: and hopefully it stands out to you,
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SPEAKER_00: is that these instructions that David is here composing,
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SPEAKER_00: remembering, they came from a particular place.
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SPEAKER_00: The cave.
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SPEAKER_00: And not just any cave, but as it says, the definite article, the cave.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: He is remembering a very specific time and place and moment.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: If you remember David's life,
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SPEAKER_00: he spent a decent amount of time in caves,
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SPEAKER_00: especially while he was on the run from the jealous
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SPEAKER_00: and also very troubled King Saul.
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SPEAKER_00: Go with me really quick.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Keep your finger in Psalm 142, but turn with me back to 1 Samuel chapter number 18.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Back a couple of books.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: 1 Samuel 18, just to get into perhaps the context of when David was writing this.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, he says the cave.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of caves mentioned.
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SPEAKER_00: We don't know for certain which of them they are.
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SPEAKER_00: But I think,
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SPEAKER_00: at least in my estimation,
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SPEAKER_00: I think the cave that appears in this context is probably the one.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: If you remember the story of David,
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SPEAKER_00: after he sends Goliath to the ground with a sling and a stone,
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SPEAKER_00: he is showered with praise.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is rejoicing around David, remember?
2:18
SPEAKER_00: He is this shepherd who is also now a warrior.
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SPEAKER_00: Look at 1 Samuel 18 and look at verse 7.
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SPEAKER_00: They come home from the battlefield and it says, And then notice,
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SPEAKER_00: Notice Saul's reaction,
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SPEAKER_00: because this is important for what we're going to talk about in just a moment.
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SPEAKER_00: And Saul was very angry.
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SPEAKER_00: And the saying displeased him.
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SPEAKER_00: And he said, they have ascribed to David ten thousands.
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SPEAKER_00: And to me...
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SPEAKER_00: They have ascribed thousands.
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SPEAKER_00: And what more can he have but the kingdom?
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SPEAKER_00: And Saul, notice, and Saul eyed David from that day on.
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SPEAKER_00: This is not a good look.
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SPEAKER_00: This is a bad look.
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SPEAKER_00: An eye of jealousy.
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SPEAKER_00: An eye of saying that I'm going to get you.
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SPEAKER_00: I am going to make you pay for how you are stealing the attention away from your king.
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SPEAKER_00: And from then on.
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SPEAKER_00: Jealousy just raged within Saul, within his heart, his soul, and his mind.
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SPEAKER_00: And eventually that rage boiled over into rage,
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SPEAKER_00: violent rage, with Saul, the king, attempting to pin David to the wall with a spear.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe you remember that story.
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SPEAKER_00: Flip over one page to chapter 19, verse number 8.
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SPEAKER_00: And there was a war again.
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SPEAKER_00: More skirmishes, more battles.
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SPEAKER_00: And David went out and he fought the Philistines and struck them with a great blow
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SPEAKER_00: so that they fled before him.
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SPEAKER_00: So the same old song over and over again.
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SPEAKER_00: David is getting all this acclaim and all of this attention.
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SPEAKER_00: And then a harmful spirit,
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SPEAKER_00: it says,
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SPEAKER_00: from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand.
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SPEAKER_00: And David was playing the lyre.
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SPEAKER_00: And Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear.
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SPEAKER_00: But he eluded Saul.
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SPEAKER_00: So that he struck the spear into the wall and David fled and escaped that night.
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SPEAKER_00: What a sequence of events going from Saul feeling a little jealous
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SPEAKER_00: that David is stealing the spotlight to now he is actively trying to kill him.
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SPEAKER_00: And from then on,
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SPEAKER_00: if you read the narrative of David's life,
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SPEAKER_00: he spends the next several years on the run.
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SPEAKER_00: A fugitive of his own kingdom.
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SPEAKER_00: Remember,
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SPEAKER_00: by this time David has already been anointed by Samuel as the next incumbent king
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SPEAKER_00: of Israel.
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SPEAKER_00: And he's yet to take that throne yet.
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SPEAKER_00: And now he's on the run.
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SPEAKER_00: He flees from his own home.
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SPEAKER_00: He flees from his family.
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SPEAKER_00: He flees from the throne that he was promised to take.
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SPEAKER_00: He flees from his best friend, Jonathan, which is a gut-wrenching narrative in and of itself.
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SPEAKER_00: He flees from Israel until,
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SPEAKER_00: flip over to chapter number 22, he flees all the way till he escapes to a cave.
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SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think it was there in that very dark,
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SPEAKER_00: maybe damp,
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SPEAKER_00: maybe bat infested cave that this shepherd who was supposed to be king is crying out
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SPEAKER_00: to God.
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SPEAKER_00: And what is he crying?
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SPEAKER_00: Back in our text, Psalm 142, what does he cry?
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SPEAKER_00: With my voice.
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SPEAKER_00: I cry out to the Lord with my voice.
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SPEAKER_00: I plead for mercy to the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: I pour out my complaints before him.
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SPEAKER_00: I tell my trouble before him.
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SPEAKER_00: If you sit with these words as I have for a little bit, this is a guttural prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: A guttural prayer and namely one that comes from that cave more than likely.
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SPEAKER_00: Which of course as we read that note a prayer a mascal that comes from the cave.
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SPEAKER_00: When I read those words I take it to mean that David was able to relive those days.
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SPEAKER_00: He was able to relive those moments of grief and heartbreak and despair even
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SPEAKER_00: as he's writing these words.
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SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is likely years later.
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SPEAKER_00: He's not in the cave when he's writing this.
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SPEAKER_00: He remembers what he was praying when he was there.
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SPEAKER_00: And all it takes is just a fleeting thought and he can zap right back there
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SPEAKER_00: and relive those nights on the run in a cave.
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SPEAKER_00: Feeling incredibly lonely.
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SPEAKER_00: All it would take is this fleeting thought and he would be right back there.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe you have a memory like that.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to assume everyone does, but maybe you do.
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SPEAKER_00: One that is so embedded into your being.
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SPEAKER_00: Your thoughts,
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SPEAKER_00: your life,
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SPEAKER_00: your being,
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SPEAKER_00: everything that you are, that you don't even have to sort of seek it out.
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SPEAKER_00: That memory comes looking for you when you least want it to.
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SPEAKER_00: The smallest of things even.
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SPEAKER_00: It could be a song, a smell.
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SPEAKER_00: And suddenly you can relive those days.
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SPEAKER_00: Days that maybe you would rather forget, but you just can't seem to forget.
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SPEAKER_00: No matter how hard you try, and you can snap right back there.
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SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like David thinking about the cave, that cave.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, it doesn't take long at all for me to relive the summer of 2018.
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SPEAKER_00: I've told this story a couple of times, so I'm not going to retell the whole thing.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Because it is odd to me that eight years ago feels like a lifetime.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe that feels like it for you, but eight years ago feels like forever ago.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet, at the same time, that summer feels like yesterday.
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SPEAKER_00: I can snap right back to it.
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SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was just having a conversation with Natalie about it the other day.
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SPEAKER_00: And I was right back there in that moment.
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SPEAKER_00: Because that's when my mom...
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SPEAKER_00: Pastor's wife of 30 years and also my mom.
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SPEAKER_00: She was diagnosed with acute manic depression and she lost all sense of reality
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SPEAKER_00: and it rocked our family to the core.
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SPEAKER_00: Still rocks me sometimes to this day.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: The day I...
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SPEAKER_00: For me, when I think about this, this is what I think of.
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SPEAKER_00: Because for me,
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SPEAKER_00: I can think of that day when I visited my mom in that mental health facility is
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SPEAKER_00: a day I will never forget.
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SPEAKER_00: It will be burned into my head forever.
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SPEAKER_00: I will always remember it.
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SPEAKER_00: I could relive it even now.
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SPEAKER_00: I relive the moments.
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SPEAKER_00: Relive the words.
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SPEAKER_00: Relive just the guttural feelings of it.
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SPEAKER_00: And even more,
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SPEAKER_00: especially and specifically,
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SPEAKER_00: I can remember going home after that little visit and going home
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SPEAKER_00: and calling Natalie.
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SPEAKER_00: And I remember it like it was yesterday.
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SPEAKER_00: Because I remember trying to think of words to describe what was going on, and I had no words.
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SPEAKER_00: And I just said, it's bad.
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SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what else to say.
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SPEAKER_00: I can snap back there in an instant.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a memory like that.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a moment.
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SPEAKER_00: That feels very much like David's cave.
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SPEAKER_00: Where it doesn't take anything at all.
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SPEAKER_00: And you're right back there.
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SPEAKER_00: Because right after that.
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SPEAKER_00: Back eight years ago in that summer.
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SPEAKER_00: There were a lot of long days.
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SPEAKER_00: And a lot of long nights.
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SPEAKER_00: Where I was crying out to God.
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SPEAKER_00: Where my whole family was.
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SPEAKER_00: Trying to understand.
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SPEAKER_00: How do we wrap our heads around this?
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SPEAKER_00: Pouring out complaints to God.
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SPEAKER_00: And now eight years removed for that.
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SPEAKER_00: What I've come to understand is.
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SPEAKER_00: And what I will cling to with,
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SPEAKER_00: I think,
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SPEAKER_00: my dying breath is that if you've been to the cave,
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SPEAKER_00: a cave of despair,
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SPEAKER_00: regret, bitterness, a cave of suffering, anxiety, or just horrible mental anguish.
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SPEAKER_00: If you've been to those places,
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SPEAKER_00: or maybe you're there now, I'm not going to try and diagnose you.
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SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, you're actually in good company.
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SPEAKER_00: Because there's several people in the scriptures that have been there too.
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SPEAKER_00: But more than that, ours is a God who has a knack for showing up in caves.
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SPEAKER_00: That's sort of what he does.
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SPEAKER_00: He isn't distant.
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SPEAKER_00: Nor is he far from you.
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SPEAKER_00: Even right now,
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SPEAKER_00: if you are caught in sort of a cave of anxiety and depression and fear or regret,
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SPEAKER_00: that's where he meets you.
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SPEAKER_00: And in other words,
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SPEAKER_00: I think this moment was ingrained in David's memory banks,
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SPEAKER_00: not only due to the awful circumstances.
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SPEAKER_00: People are hunting him.
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SPEAKER_00: He's hiding out in caves.
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SPEAKER_00: He's trying to survive.
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SPEAKER_00: It's ingrained because of that, yes.
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SPEAKER_00: But also because of who showed up for him when he was at his lowest.
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SPEAKER_00: And the reason I think he puts these jarring words to song is so that we too,
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SPEAKER_00: even now,
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SPEAKER_00: 2,000 odd years removed from,
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SPEAKER_00: even more than that, removed from David's experience, we can take heart.
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SPEAKER_00: Even when the bitterest, worst stuff of life seems to overwhelm us.
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SPEAKER_00: There are three lessons I think that we can hold fast to in the cave today.
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SPEAKER_00: Lessons from a cave, three lessons we can hold fast to.
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SPEAKER_00: Number one, I want you to see quickly the way out of the cave.
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SPEAKER_00: The way out of the cave.
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SPEAKER_00: When David escaped to this cave of Adullam,
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SPEAKER_00: as we might wager from 1 Samuel chapter number 22, he was seeking safety.
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SPEAKER_00: He was seeking a place where he could escape his pursuers.
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SPEAKER_00: Saul and his band of men were hot on his heels.
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SPEAKER_00: But what's fascinating is that soon,
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SPEAKER_00: very soon after David found safety in this cave, it turned into a prison.
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SPEAKER_00: Did you notice what he says in verse number 7?
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SPEAKER_00: The very first phrase, bring me out of prison.
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SPEAKER_00: The cave that David sought after became a cell.
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SPEAKER_00: Locking that future king of Israel, we could say, in a dungeon of despair and discouragement.
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SPEAKER_00: He is hemmed in.
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SPEAKER_00: He is cramped on every single side.
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SPEAKER_00: And his enemies are,
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SPEAKER_00: he feels as if his enemies are just outside the mouth of the cave, ready to pounce.
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SPEAKER_00: As he says in verse number three,
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SPEAKER_00: for the enemy has pursued my, no, that's chapter 143, wrong verse.
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SPEAKER_00: Chapter 142, verse three.
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SPEAKER_00: When my, in the paths where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me, he says.
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SPEAKER_00: Even if he were to escape, it's almost as if it wouldn't matter.
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SPEAKER_00: There are traps and snares waiting for him just outside.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what brings David, as he says, to this all-time low.
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SPEAKER_00: I am at my lowest, he says.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's when he begins to pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, again, with my voice, I cry to the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: With my voice, I plead for mercy to the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, this prayer, I'll say it like this.
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SPEAKER_00: This prayer,
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SPEAKER_00: I think,
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SPEAKER_00: is the opposite of those neat and tidy prayers you might hear in Sunday school.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to disparage those, but this is not a neat and tidy prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: This is not a well-manicured prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: It may look like that, but I think a closer look reveals otherwise.
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SPEAKER_00: This prayer is like a shriek in the darkness.
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SPEAKER_00: He's crying for help.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what that word cry means.
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SPEAKER_00: I cry to the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm crying for help.
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SPEAKER_00: He's in anguish.
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SPEAKER_00: He's in distress.
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SPEAKER_00: And actually,
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SPEAKER_00: if you read those verses,
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SPEAKER_00: verses 1 and 2, he's basically saying the same thing four times.
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SPEAKER_00: Four different ways.
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SPEAKER_00: He's going to God and just telling him everything.
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SPEAKER_00: And most vividly in verse number two, notice what he says.
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SPEAKER_00: I pour out my complaint before him.
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SPEAKER_00: If you try and get the picture in your mind's eye, imagine a boiling pot of water.
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SPEAKER_00: You're boiling water.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're trying to make boiled eggs or pasta.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you're doing.
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SPEAKER_00: A pot of boiling water.
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SPEAKER_00: And it crashes to the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: And all that water just sprays everywhere.
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SPEAKER_00: That's David with his prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: That's the word picture of what he's trying to convey.
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SPEAKER_00: He is just spilling out everything.
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SPEAKER_00: He is pouring out his heart.
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SPEAKER_00: He's spilling his deepest, darkest anxieties and fears and troubles.
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SPEAKER_00: And he's giving them to God in their rawest form.
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SPEAKER_00: He's pouring out these complaints and he's not editing them.
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SPEAKER_00: He's not trying to soften them or make them sound better.
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SPEAKER_00: He's just letting God know.
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SPEAKER_00: He's giving voice to his deepest and his darkest worries,
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SPEAKER_00: paying little attention to how he sounds or how he appears.
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SPEAKER_00: He's not posturing.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: There's no attempt to sound poised or put together.
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SPEAKER_00: He's suppressing nothing.
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SPEAKER_00: Why?
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SPEAKER_00: Because he knows who he's talking to.
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SPEAKER_00: As he says four times, I'm crying out to the Lord, to the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing this cry before him, before him.
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SPEAKER_00: I think prayer...
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SPEAKER_00: I understand if you get nervous.
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SPEAKER_00: I haven't done this in a lot.
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SPEAKER_00: I know I've called on people to pray at ends of services.
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SPEAKER_00: And they're surprised.
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SPEAKER_00: They're stunned.
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SPEAKER_00: They're actually shocked when I call on them to pray.
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SPEAKER_00: And they're like, don't do that again.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll warn you next time.
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SPEAKER_00: I understand if you get nervous to pray in front of people.
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SPEAKER_00: But I also would like to say this.
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SPEAKER_00: I think prayer is often mistaken for something that it isn't.
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SPEAKER_00: What makes prayer prayer isn't the length of your prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: This is in the depth of your vocabulary.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, my granddad, my dad's dad, he was a pastor too.
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SPEAKER_00: He passed away in 2016.
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SPEAKER_00: I love to hear him pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Because he could, some of you are going to get this, but not everyone, but I'll explain it.
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SPEAKER_00: He could pray in the King James.
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SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that,
16:53
SPEAKER_00: he would pray with these and thous and thou art and all that kind of stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: And it wouldn't sound like he's trying to put on something.
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SPEAKER_00: It was just natural.
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SPEAKER_00: It just kind of came out of him.
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SPEAKER_00: That's just how he prayed.
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SPEAKER_00: And I love to hear it.
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SPEAKER_00: But that's not the measure of what prayer is.
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SPEAKER_00: It's not about your eloquence or how polished you sound.
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SPEAKER_00: God isn't up in heaven grading your prayers, waiting to hear a certain set of words.
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SPEAKER_00: God just wants to hear you.
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SPEAKER_00: Can I say that?
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SPEAKER_00: God just wants to hear you.
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SPEAKER_00: Not the dressed up you.
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SPEAKER_00: Not the organized you.
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SPEAKER_00: The real you.
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SPEAKER_00: That's who he wants to hear.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what David is right here.
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SPEAKER_00: This is the real raw David in a cave crying out to God
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SPEAKER_00: with his own voice echoing off the walls of a cave.
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SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon,
17:51
SPEAKER_00: the great preacher from London,
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SPEAKER_00: when he's commenting on this particular psalm,
17:57
SPEAKER_00: he says this and I think it's quite appropriate.
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SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon says, quote,
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SPEAKER_00: we don't show our trouble before the Lord that he may see it,
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SPEAKER_00: but that we may see him.
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SPEAKER_00: You see, God already knows.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: God already knows your troubles.
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SPEAKER_00: He already knows what you are enduring.
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SPEAKER_00: But now, in the midst of this moment, these guttural prayers, suddenly David is able to see God.
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SPEAKER_00: Why?
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SPEAKER_00: Because God's ears, God's ears are attuned to your prayers.
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SPEAKER_00: Your desperate, distressing cries.
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SPEAKER_00: Those cries that you cry in the dark.
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SPEAKER_00: And although you might not think that your prayers are escaping the four walls
18:41
SPEAKER_00: of your bedroom as you lie in bed trying to go to sleep and you don't think
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SPEAKER_00: that anything is actually working.
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SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, God hears you and God knows you.
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SPEAKER_00: Because look at what David says.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Verse number three.
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SPEAKER_00: Again, again, he's crying out, pouring out complaints.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And then verse three.
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SPEAKER_00: When my spirit faints,
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SPEAKER_00: when I am weak,
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SPEAKER_00: when I am just fainting to the ground and I'm just falling all over myself,
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SPEAKER_00: you know my way.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: He already knows.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: God already knows your circumstances.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: He's deeply aware of your trouble, what is troubling you, so you don't have to dance around it.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to try and clean it up or make it sound better.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Instead,
19:29
SPEAKER_00: like David, we,
19:30
SPEAKER_00: God's people, we are free to bring all of our weak and fainting hearts before him.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Before the one who can weather even the worst of complaints.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: That's who he is.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: You see, what David learned in this cave isn't necessarily what we want to hear.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Which is the way out of a cave isn't necessarily a strategy.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: It's not a technique.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: It's not a six step program.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Here's how I can't give you that because David doesn't give us that.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that exists.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: The way out is knowing the one who knows your way.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: As he says, you know my way.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you,
20:13
SPEAKER_00: this is more than just,
20:16
SPEAKER_00: this is more than just God knowing and noticing David's pain or what he's going
20:21
SPEAKER_00: through.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: It does include that.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: But God knowing David's way means that he's holding everything in his hand.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: He's holding it all.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: He's holding it from start to finish.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: There is one.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: David is finding sanctuary in the fact that there's one who is holding his life
20:41
SPEAKER_00: from beginning to end, including this sequence in a cave.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: You're holding me, he says.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: You know my way.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Although David couldn't see it in this moment,
20:57
SPEAKER_00: And even he couldn't fathom a way out on his own.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
21:04
SPEAKER_00: You know my way.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: This is who we, even now, are welcome to cry out to for help.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: The Lord who knows,
21:14
SPEAKER_00: as it says in the very first Psalm,
21:16
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 1 verse 6, the Lord who knows the way of the righteous.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: He's the same Lord who knows David's way in the dark.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And he knows your way too, even if you don't.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: The way out of the cave, number two, let me hasten, the truth in the cave.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: The truth in the cave.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Part of what makes these caves of despair, we could say, so grievous is how lonely they are.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: There seems to be no way someone could ever understand what you're going through.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: How this is making you feel.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And that only makes you feel lonelier.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Because it makes you feel like you're on an island.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: No one knows my circumstances.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: No one knows what led to this.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And David has a similar experience here.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: As he looked around and he saw no one with him.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Verse number four.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Look to the right and see.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: There is none who takes notice of me.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: No refuge remains to me.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: No one cares for my soul.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: The right, as David hears here referencing it, could also be translated the right hand.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And he's looking to the right hand.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And the right hand,
22:40
SPEAKER_00: of course,
22:40
SPEAKER_00: is where you would expect to find someone that would serve as your advocate.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Your confidant.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Your friend.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have that phrase, this is my right hand man.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: It's someone that you can rely on.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Someone that you can lean on and depend on.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And now, David says, he looks to the right and it's empty.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: No one's there.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That spot is vacant.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: No one's standing with David.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: No one's coming to his defense.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: No one's coming to his defense.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: As you're confessing, no one notices his plight and no one seems to care.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, that's what he's confessing to God.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: I think this is one of the most guttural, gut-wrenching verses in this whole psalm.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And definitely, I would say, the most relatable.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Because, I mean, I'm not going to just throw swipes at social media.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: But, I mean, we're connected more than ever.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And yet, if you look at all of the recent data, we are lonelier than ever.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: As a citizen, as human beings.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And here the future king of Israel, he's caught in this vicious cycle of despair and loneliness.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And each one is feeding the other to the point where now he can't even make heads
24:02
SPEAKER_00: or tails of what is real.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: He's not just wallowing in his feelings, crying, woe is me.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: No, what he's trying to do as he's parsing this out, he's trying to make sense of his situation.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm on my own.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: There's no escaping this and no one cares because I'm on my own.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: This is what David's just bare reality told him.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: That he was all on his own and no one was coming to his aid.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you that this is exactly what anxiety and fear and depression
24:39
SPEAKER_00: and trouble can do to you.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: It can cloud your judgment to the point where what you feel seems to be
24:46
SPEAKER_00: the only thing that's true.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: It's all that you know.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: And before long, you're trapped in a string of thoughts and cares that just never let up.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: They just continually and unceasingly press in on you.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And you want to get out of that.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: You want to get out of that cave,
25:04
SPEAKER_00: that vortex of thoughts and feelings and heartache, but you just can't.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: As David says, there's no refuge remaining to me.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: There's no escape.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And this is when David's despairing and discouraging reality gives way
25:23
SPEAKER_00: to something infinitely truer because on the heels of this confession,
25:26
SPEAKER_00: no one cares, no one sees, no one notices.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, I cry to you, O Lord, and I say, you are my refuge.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: You are my portion in the land of the living.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: this isn't just some happy,
25:48
SPEAKER_00: clappy, inspirational, motivational speech that he's trying to give himself.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: David isn't sort of masking his affliction by penning these words.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: He's not slapping a smile on a tortured soul.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: No, he's confessing that the truth that he found in the cave is
26:05
SPEAKER_00: the only thing worth clinging to.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Which is what?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Was this.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Where we so often long and seek and crave for an escape from the cave,
26:18
SPEAKER_00: God shows up to be our refuge in the depths of it.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: He meets us right there because that's what he did for David.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: He meets us there in the darkness and that's where he gives himself to us
26:33
SPEAKER_00: as our portion of I want you to watch this.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Again, look at verse 4 and 5.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Look to the right and see.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: There is none who takes notice of me.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: No refuge.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Underline that word.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: No refuge remains to me.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: No one cares for my soul.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: I cry to you, O Lord.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I say, you are my refuge.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Circle that word.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And my portion in the land of the living.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear this.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: The refuge that David lacks isn't the same refuge that David finds.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Because this is one of those times where sometimes our translations mess us up.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of conveying the same thing.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: But actually when he says no refuge remains to me.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: That's a different word than when he says you are my refuge.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: In one sense he's saying that there's no escape.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Literally that's the word.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: There's no escape.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be zapped out of the situation.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he gets.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: God instead is present for him as what?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: That word literally you are my refuge.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: You are my shelter.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: My covering, my covert from the storm.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: God is his refuge in the middle of his situation.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Now on the other side of it,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't take him out of it,
27:51
SPEAKER_00: but in the middle,
27:52
SPEAKER_00: right in the middle of what he's enduring, this is who God is for him.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: He shows up and he is his shelter in the midst of that torrential downpour
28:01
SPEAKER_00: of suffering and anguish and fear and everything else that is pressing in
28:05
SPEAKER_00: on David's heart and soul and mind.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: That's where God shows up.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And as it says in another Psalm,
28:11
SPEAKER_00: he shows up as David's refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: My friends, this is who God is for you.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: He is your safe harbor, your haven amid anything that you are enduring in life.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: The sanctuary, the place of rest in these times of deep despair is the Lord.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And we meet the Lord through the word.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we meet and find that he's the one who is with us in the midst
28:40
SPEAKER_00: of our infirmities and weakness.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of all of our fainting.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of those times when we can't make sense of anything going on in the future.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: See, the truth that you are alone in those caves isn't the truest truth.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Because there's one who is with you in the depths.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: It's God himself.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: He shows up in the depths.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: This is sort of his penchant.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: This is sort of his calling card.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: A hallmark of the God of the Bible is he shows up near the brokenhearted.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Those who've been wasted on life.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Those who are finding it hard and difficult to even get up in the morning.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: He's the one, as it says in another psalm, he comes and lifts up their heads.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: The way out of the cave.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: The truth in the cave.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, number three, the life beyond the cave.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: The life beyond the cave.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: One of the most bitter ingredients of depression if you've been in one
29:42
SPEAKER_00: of those places before is how it convinces you that this is all that there is.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: That this is all that there is.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: There are times, I think there are very, I can say this from experience.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: There's times when verse 4 feels like that's it.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: That's all that there is.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: This is my new normal now.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: No one knows me.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: No one cares.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: That's what it feels like.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's especially difficult because you can get trapped in that thinking.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: But David has found a buoyant,
30:14
SPEAKER_00: we could say,
30:14
SPEAKER_00: and an abundant hope,
30:16
SPEAKER_00: even in the midst of this cave,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: which fills him with this calm yet timely assurance where he cries out to God.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says in verse number six.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Attend to my cry, for I am brought low.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Deliver me from my persecutors for they are too strong for me.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Bring me out of prison that I may give thanks to your name.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: The righteous will surround me for you will deal bountifully with me.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: David is already longing for that day.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: He's already looking for it.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: He's expecting that God is going to deliver him.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: That God's going to bring him out.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know when.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know how.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: But he believes it.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: He longs to be free of that cave,
31:10
SPEAKER_00: as he says, and to be surrounded by the company of the righteous, of the redeemed.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: And he can't wait to give thanks with them and rejoice in the name of the Deliverer.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And they can be with each other, singing out his praises.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: He longs for that.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: His heart is filled up with hope that this cave won't last forever.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: But there's something strange about how the psalm ends.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: As it says, bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: These words that perhaps constituted a prayer that David prayed when he was in
31:50
SPEAKER_00: that cave, they end with him still there.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Even as the last word is sung or prayed, it's echoed off the walls of a cave.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: He's still there.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: He's yet to run free.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: He's yet to have any relief from that pressing despair.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: And he's yet to shake off any doubts and uncertainties and anxieties
32:13
SPEAKER_00: that put him there in the first place.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: But there's something different now about his perspective.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Because what's eclipsing his despair is There's the one who's listening.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: What fills David with life, even when he's at his lowest, is what?
32:35
SPEAKER_00: The Lord bending his ear to hear him cry for help.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: Verse number six, attend to my cry.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: This brings up this great image that we have to keep in our mind's eyes as much
32:51
SPEAKER_00: as possible, that God's ears are never plugged in.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: He's in depth to our broken hearted prayers.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this as well.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing,
33:04
SPEAKER_00: there's nothing that you can say or gripe about or confess that can ever take God
33:10
SPEAKER_00: by surprise.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: He's not surprised.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: He's not taken off guard.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he delights, he delights when you cast all your burden on him.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: No matter what those burdens are.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: As it says in Psalm 55 verse 22, cast your burdens on the Lord and he will sustain you.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Or as Peter,
33:33
SPEAKER_00: he picks up the same thought,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Those are invitations that aren't qualified.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't sit down and Decipher if your burden is one that's worth taking.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: No, just cast it.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Pour it out.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Give it to him.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: What gives us life in and beyond all those caves of difficulty and discouragement
34:02
SPEAKER_00: and despair that we go through is that there is one who cares.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Who's attentive, as it says, he attends to our cries.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: He's attentive to all of our fears.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: And that word,
34:15
SPEAKER_00: that word from 1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your cares on him because he cares for you.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: That goes way deeper,
34:24
SPEAKER_00: way deeper than just getting a, you know, a thinking of you card in the mail.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those are great, but that's not what God's care is.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Because the good,
34:34
SPEAKER_00: you see,
34:34
SPEAKER_00: the good news that David found is And the good news that Peter is there proclaiming
34:39
SPEAKER_00: that the Bible reveals is this is that God is concerned and troubled with all of
34:45
SPEAKER_00: the concerns and troubles that we endure.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: That's what that word cares.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: He cares for you.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Meaning is that quite literally he is feeling your troubles
34:54
SPEAKER_00: and your concerns right along with you.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's conveying.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: That in all your adversity, he's attentive to it.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: As it says in Isaiah 63, that in all of our affliction, he is afflicted.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: This is the lesson.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I think the most sobering lesson from the cave is that all that we have in the midst
35:18
SPEAKER_00: of those seasons, all that we have and all that we need is a person.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: The life The truth, the way out is a person.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: One who doesn't wither.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't shrink.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't distance himself from us.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Even when we are weak.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Even when we are languishing and failing.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: No, instead, this person, that's right when he shows up.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: That's right when he attends.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: That's right when he delivers us.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: You see, hope for us in our caves of despair is Hope has a name and that name is Jesus.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Go with me really quick.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see this.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're already thinking of this.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Go with me to John chapter 14.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Centuries later, centuries after David, there was a room full of disciples.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: And that room became full of trouble
36:22
SPEAKER_00: because those disciples heard their teacher tell them that he was about to leave.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: For one,
36:28
SPEAKER_00: and also there's some rumors about these guys trying to have this conspiracy
36:33
SPEAKER_00: against him.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: And now this announcement turns this already kind of awkward dinner
36:38
SPEAKER_00: into this very ominous moment.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: That's the scene in the upper room with Jesus and his disciples.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Telling them he's about to leave.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Telling them he had to die.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly,
36:51
SPEAKER_00: imagine being Peter,
36:53
SPEAKER_00: James and John, or Andrew, one of the other disciples, Nathaniel, in that room.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Hearing this rabbi,
36:59
SPEAKER_00: this teacher that you've come to believe is Jesus the Christ,
37:02
SPEAKER_00: God's Messiah, and now he's telling you he's going away.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, the way ahead would seem more than a little disorienting.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, the truth, what you thought you knew, feels a little bit blurry and garbled.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly,
37:22
SPEAKER_00: the life that you thought that you were going to have seems to be slipping
37:26
SPEAKER_00: through your fingers.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, why are you going away?
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Where are you going?
37:31
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples in that upper room,
37:32
SPEAKER_00: I would hasten to say, were every bit as lost as David in that cave.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: How can we know the way?
37:42
SPEAKER_00: That's what one of them wonders is.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Out loud.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: How can we know the way?
37:48
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's when Jesus responds.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Verse number six, those famous words.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father except through me.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, in more ways than one,
38:11
SPEAKER_00: I think that we find ourselves in caves like David.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Or cave like rooms like the apostles.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: And maybe, no, I don't think so.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we have an army of guys hunting us down.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: And we're not in a cave like that.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: But we are still forced into those places.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Fears without.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Fears within.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: Fears within.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Worries about family, about politics, about the future.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: They can send you into very dark places.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And the troubles of life seem to just press in on every side.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Believe me, I've been there.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: There is plenty of material to make you cower in despair and longing and fear.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: But what we find Throughout all of these pages of the Bible.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And what we find out throughout life is that the answer to those caves is never a what.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: It's always who.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: It's always Jesus.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the answer.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: I might sound so simplistic, but I read the story.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: I think it fits, but I'm going to tell it anyways.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Tell the story.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: There's this guy.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted to go, and he was seeking out Mother Teresa, the saint of a woman.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: And he wants to go,
39:40
SPEAKER_00: he meets Mother Teresa,
39:42
SPEAKER_00: and when he's talking with her and he's conversing with her, he asks for prayer.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: And she says, what do you want me to pray for?
39:49
SPEAKER_00: He asks Mother Teresa, can you pray that I can have some clarity?
39:55
SPEAKER_00: And this is a paraphrase, by the way.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: This is not the exact story, but it goes something like this.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: I want some clarity.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: And Mother Teresa tells him, no, I'm not going to pray for that.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Which I would find very surprising.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean you're not going to pray for?
40:09
SPEAKER_00: But what she says is, I'm not going to pray for clarity, but I will pray for trust.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the point.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: So often we want everything to be clear and rosy.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: We want to have everything mapped out.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: We want all of the things made clear to us.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: And the point is, we have someone who is holding out his hand saying, do you trust me?
40:34
SPEAKER_00: That's who Jesus is.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who goes into our caves and bears what we cannot bear.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: He endures what would make us buckle and he comes out the other side victorious.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the truth of the gospel that we preach
40:51
SPEAKER_00: that Jesus didn't just enter your cave, he enters your death.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: And he took that as his own.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: And in the darkness of the cross, what does he become?
41:01
SPEAKER_00: He becomes your refuge by becoming your substitute.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: And he went to that grave to make a way out of it in the light of his resurrection.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: And this is why Jesus, for those disciples and for us, is the way, the truth, and the life.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's because of that we can be resting assured knowing that
41:25
SPEAKER_00: that cave isn't our final destination.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: That with him there is a way out.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: There is a truth to be found in his company and in his presence.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: And that there is life to be had in the midst of all that because we have him.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: We have him who is the way, the truth, and the life himself.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ the righteous.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: This is what gives us hope in those places of despair and discouragement and fear.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: If you're there right now,
41:57
SPEAKER_00: if you're there right now,
41:59
SPEAKER_00: I pray, I pray that you would see, I pray that you would see this.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: God, reveal yourself to those who are in these caves.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: Because he's there for you.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: As he always will be.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.