Psalm 59 - 10.1.24
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 59:16,17 "...I will sing of Your strength and will joyfully proclaim Your faithful love in the morning. For you have been a stronghold for me, a refuge in my day of trouble. To You, my strength, I sing praises, because God is my stronghold ---my faithful God."
OBSERVATION: So, what caused David to praise God here in this psalm? Let's go back a bit: King Saul was after David. He wanted him dead! He was jealous because after David had come back from killing Goliath, the women came out from all the cities of Israel to meet King Saul, singing and dancing with tambourines, with shouts of joy, and with three-stringed instruments. As they celebrated, the women sang: "Saul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands." Saul was furious and resented this song, and he watched David jealously from that day forward.
The next day an evil spirit sent from God took control of Saul, and he began to rave inside the palace. David was playing the lyre as usual, but Saul was holding a spear, and he threw it, thinking, "I'll pin David to the wall." But David got away from him twice. Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David, but left Saul. Saul resigned David and made him commander over 1,000 men. David led the troops and continued to be successful in all his activities because the Lord was with him. When Saul observed that David was very successful, he dreaded him.
Saul's daughter, Michal loved David, but David didn't consider himself a good match because he was a poor man who was common, but Saul told his servants to tell David that he desired no other bride-price except 100 Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies. Actually, Saul intended to cause David's death at the hands of the Philistines. When David and his men went out and killed not 100, but 200 Philistines and presented their foreskins to the king, Saul gave his daughter to David to be his wife. But when he realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter loved him, he became afraid of David, and Saul was David's enemy from then on!
Saul ordered his son, Jonathan and all his servants to kill David, but since Jonathan liked David very much, he told David that his father intended on killing him, and to be on guard in the morning and hide in a secret place and stay there. Saul sent men to David's house to watch and kill him in the morning. But Michal warned him to run for his life that night or he would be killed in the morning.
David fled, and he, along with his men hid in the back of a cave. Saul and 3,000 of his men were coming to get him! Not knowing that David and his men were in there, Saul went into that very cave to relieve himself. David secretly cut off the corner of Saul's robe, but his conscience bothered him because he had sworn to the Lord that he would never do such a thing to the Lord's anointed, and he persuaded his men not to rise up against Saul.
David went out of the cave, and called to Saul and showed him that he could have killed him in that cave. King Saul wept aloud, and told David that he was more righteous than he was for doing good to him after all the evil that he had done to David. "May the Lord repay you with good for what you've done for me today." Then Saul knew that David would be the next king, and the kingdom of Israel would be established in his hand, and he asked Saul to swear that he would not cut off his descendants or wipe out his name from his father's family. David agreed.
APPLICATION: This brings us to the answer as to why David was singing praises to God. At the beginning of this Scripture David was crying out to God to deliver him from his enemies, and to protect him from those who were rising up against him. And at the end of the psalm David gave all the glory to God for how He had answered his prayer, and delivered Him.
God answered David's prayer. He miraculously intervened! King Saul, who was out to get him, was delivered into David's hands, but David chose to spare him because he was God's anointed.
David experienced God's love and mercy, in the good times as well as the bad, and He knew that God's love was boundless. He knew he could cry out to Him, and receive the help that he desperately needed. As David's life was being hunted down, and as he was hiding out and running for his life from the one who wanted him dead because of his jealousy, David remained faithful to the Lord by not harming King Saul, even when he had the opportunity to do so!
When others fail us, we can trust that God will handle the situation in His perfect way, and His perfect timing. We can ALWAYS depend on God's availability and on His unfailing love!
PRAYER: Thank You Lord that we can learn from David's life that even in the grimmest details of his life, He was able to keep his trust in You. He was honest about his feelings, and transparent regarding the desperate need that he was in. As You were David's Helper, his source of strength, and his Fortress, You are ours as well! You are the One we can run to and be safe when our lives are in danger. I pray we will not only pray to You, but that we will praise You THROUGH the trials that we face. You are such a good and faithful God to us! I pray we will have stories like David of how we have put our faith and trust in You, and how You have met us in our times of need.
- Robin Orefice
