DUNCAN/No other refuge

If you have your Bible, I’d invite you to turn with me to Psalm 142. This psalm is what is called a complaint or an individual lament, which means that it is a poem about a distressing situation which a believer has encountered, and in that poem, the believer is offering a prayer, a plea, a help to God with no inhibition. He is bearing his heart before God, pouring out his distress and his need before the living God. In other words, the psalmist is not griping against God, he’s not griping about God, he’s not blaming God; he’s passionately pleading his case to God. There’s a kind of complaining against God that’s not good. However, this is a very good kind of complaint. In fact, God wants us to bring these kinds of complaints to Him.

David’s Urgent Plea and Prayer

The first thing I want you to see is the prayer in verses 1 to 3. This is urgent prayer. David is not casually going to the throne of grace and throwing up a few intercessions; he is on his knees before the Lord, desperately in need, and his soul is troubled as he goes before the Lord. Have you ever done that? Have you ever been in a place, you’re by yourself, you’re in an inner room, there’s no one else around, and you just scream out to the Lord. “I plead for mercy to the Lord,” he says. “I pour out my complaint before Him. I tell my trouble before Him.” Is that not an instructive sentence? Do you tell your trouble before Him? David says he does. 

That’s the good kind of complaint that we’re talking about. We’re told by the apostle Paul that one of the reasons that the children of Israel were struck down in the wilderness is that they complained. So why is this kind of a complaint okay and that kind of a complaint got them killed in the wilderness? Because the complaint in the wilderness was an expression of unbelief, and you see this in their blaming Moses. “You did this to us, Moses! This is your fault!” Unbelieving complaint always has a tendency to find and locate someone who’s at fault. Sometimes it’s at God Himself. The finger of blame is pointed to God. It’s a very dangerous kind of complaint.

David’s Predicament and God’s Providence 

And then in verses 3 and 4, we see something of David’s predicament and God’s providence. David feels alone. He feels abandoned and even betrayed by human friends. It’s a lonely path — It’s a dangerous path, because his enemies are trying to trap him. And as he cries out to God about that predicament and that path, behind it is a sense of God’s providence. How do I know that? Well just look at what he says back in verse 3. “When my spirit faints within me, You know my way.” When you feel that no one cares for you and that everyone is against you, you need to remember your God. He knows your way. He knows it past, present, and future. No enemy can lay a snare for your feet apart from your Father’s knowledge and will. His providence is pervasive.

Do you have that kind of a sense of God’s providence in your life? Do you understand that nothing happens by accident? That not a hair can fall from your head apart from the knowledge and will of your heavenly Father who loves you and gave His Son for you? Or do you quickly forget who He is? I think many of us are tempted to forget who He is. We can read our Bibles or hear a sermon and as we’re walking out our cell phone rings and suddenly, we forget everything we’ve just heard. It’s a matter of an exercise of faith, isn’t it? But David is teaching us here. He goes to God in this predicament; he talks about the hard path he’s on because he believes in God’s providence.

David’s Portion and Prize

And then if you look at verses 5 and 6, David speaks of his portion or his prize. “I cry to You, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.’” David is acknowledging that the Lord is his prize. If the Lord is your prize, He’s the portion that you want, and no matter your circumstance, no one can take that away. They can take your family silver, they can take your reputation, they can take your marriage, they can take your job, they can take all your hopes and dreams, but they can’t take Jesus from you. 

And David’s saying this in part because he’s not just using God as a divine bellhop to get him out of trouble. “Lord, quick — Come here and get me out of this mess!” He’s wanting to make it clear, “Yes, I’m coming to You, Lord, and I’m asking for help, but understand this — You’re what I really want. I’m not using You to get something better; You’re the something better that I want. I do want out of this predicament, but I want You more than anything else.” And you know, if we’ll approach our predicaments that way, the Lord will become more precious to us and our predicaments will become opportunities for real spiritual growth because we’re prizing the Lord. 

David’s Persecutors and His Prison 

And then, David describes his persecutors and his prison in verses 6 and 7. “Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me! Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to Your name!” David speaks in faith because this problem that he’s facing has prompted him to total dependence upon God. And isn’t that just like God? When we won’t just go to Him and depend on Him, He’ll put us in circumstances where we have to. But he’s confident. “Lord, when You get me out, I’m going to praise You!” 

Have you ever felt weak or poor or hopeless or friendless in a situation that was never going to get fixed? Do not despair. Hope to the end. The best is always yet to come with the believer.  Even if there is no resolve in this world, yet there will be in the world to come. My friends, the victory of the Crucified Christ settles a thousand problems and difficulties in our hearts and minds if we will but believe. God has appointed it that in the life of the believer, the cross is the way to victory, and the grave is the way to life. And if humiliation was our Savior’s way to glorification and exaltation, need we question whether that is not our path too? David prayed and taught us to. David believed in God’s providence and taught us to. David prized the Lord as his portion above everything and beckons us to. And David depended on the Lord and urges us to. Believe and hope. He will not fail you.