I've Been Rescued

By: Howard Vanderwell

Scripture Reading: Psalm 34

July 26th, 2009

The Psalms compose a fascinating book of the Bible. There are 150 Psalms in the Old Testament. You’ll find them just about in the middle of your Bible. They are written like poems; you’ll recognize them there in verse form. Most people assume, I think, that all the Psalms are about praise. They call Psalms the praise—book of the Bible, and it’s true that many of them are Psalms of praise. But not all of them are. Not nearly all of them! You’ll also find testimonies of thanks here for the good gifts of life. And you’ll find the confession of sins; and lessons in wise living; and also a good many cries of pain in lives that seems to be falling apart; and even some deep cries of complaint because life seems so very unfair and God seems so far away. These Psalms are so fascinating because they are so real. They are so in touch with all the experiences, emotions, and the ups and downs that life inevitably involves. They cover the whole range of life’s experiences. There is no experience in life that you won’t find reflected in some way in the Psalms. I think of the Psalms as a reflection of the very soul of life. Now, the fact that there is a book like this in the Bible, the fact that the Holy Spirit of God saw fit to lead people to write this kind of literature, tells me that God really does understand me. He really does understand my life. Yes, it’s a very earthy book about all the stuff that life involves. And it helps me feel a part of the world—wide and centuries—long body of Christ when I sing and pray the same things that thousands and millions of believers have sung and prayed before me. So, for the next five weeks, I’d like to explore five of these Psalms with you. I’ve selected these five very carefully to reflect different experiences and emotions in the Christian life. And I want to begin today with this 34th Psalm that we heard just a few moments ago. This is a Psalm that King David wrote. He wrote many of the Psalms, though not all Psalms are David’s. There are other authors involved too. You see, it’s important that we become familiar with this personal story of David’s life behind this Psalm, That is so important because (well, let me put it this way), if you are going through troubles in life, who is in a position to help and encourage you…someone who has never experienced trouble, or someone who has gone through it, and has grown beyond it. If you have lost your job and are feeling deep anxiety, who can understand you and help you better than someone who has gone through that very experience? If you are facing surgery, someone who has also been there can encourage you the most. If you’re dealing with cancer, for instance, you’ll find that there is a deep bond between cancer patients. They understand each other. You see, there is a principle of life here — people who have gone through tough times are best able to help those who are going through tough times. And that’s why this Psalm is so special. Here’s one sufferer who has been rescued and is in a position to help and encourage others. Here is someone who has called to God and been delivered so he’s in a position to encourage the rest of us who are calling to God today. That’s the way the Bible is written. It’s a very personal book. It has all kinds of biographies and personal stories in it; so that when we open the Bible we are able to walk right into their stories. You see, we all come before God with our own stories. Every life is a story. I have mine, you have yours—all kinds of stories. Our stories include the growth and joys, the pain and trouble, the strengths and weaknesses inherent in all our living. We all have them. And David does. And here he is inviting us into his story. The subtitle for this Psalm tells us which part of David’s story is in view here. It says, “When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.” That’s really quite a story; let me tell you about it. It’s found in I Samuel 21. David had been anointed by Samuel to be king of Israel, but he was not yet on the throne because Saul was still the sitting king. Saul had become very jealous of David because David had wracked up some very impressive military records. As a matter of fact, people were chanting “Saul has slain his thousands; but David his ten thousands.” So Saul, in his jealousy, and out of his evil heart, determines that he will kill David. And so it is necessary for David to become a fugitive for fear of his life. He lives in caves, hiding out with friends, and is constantly on the move from one area to another. At one point he even moved into a city by the name of Gath, which happened to belong to their enemies, the Philistines. He apparently thought he could live there undetected. It went OK for awhile, but then some fellows recognized who he was and went to Achish, the king there, and reported his presence. So David was summoned into the presence of King Achish. It must have been terribly frightening, for King Achish could easily betray him, or sell him to Saul for ransom to make some peace with each other. It was a terribly precarious situation. So guess what David did! He pretended to be insane. Here’s how I Samuel 21 describes the situation, “So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.” (I Samuel 21:13) Well, King Achish wanted none of that, so he said, “look at him, why did you bring him to me, do I need another madman around me?!” So he freed David. David escaped and went back into the hills and the caves to continue hiding from evil King Saul. He had narrowly escaped with his life. Now, this Psalm is associated with that event in David’s life. But, mind you, he didn’t write this Psalm while he was living undetected in Gath, and he didn’t write it while he was disguising himself as an insane fellow, and I’m sure he didn’t even write it as soon as he arrived back in the cave to hide. It took a while. This is one of those Psalms that is written some time later, in retrospect, after he’s had ample time to reflect on the whole experience. It’s a Psalm written, we say, while looking through the rear—view mirror. And then his message here is “I have been rescued!…Yes, I really have been! I am a rescued person!” Let me just show you the three parts of this Psalm and then together we’ll look at some of the big things we can learn from David here. He begins the Psalm with three verses of praise to God. “I will extol the Lord at all times, his praise will always be on my lips….Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.” Then there is a break in the Psalm and he changes his mode. It’s like he stops there and says, “Now let me tell you why I feel that way, why I am so eager to praise God and have you join me in that….” And so he looks back, in retrospect, on that whole experience. Time has passed now; he’s reflected carefully on it all. And so he tells his story in terms of what was happening inside him. If you want to know the story on the outside then you have to point to his disguise, Saul’s threat, being hauled before the king. That’s all on the outside. But if you want the story from the inside, here it is. He says I sought the Lord for help; I cried to him in my fears; I called to the Lord out of my troubles. That’s what I did. And then he tells the story of God’s rescue. “He answered me; he delivered me; he saved me out of all my troubles.” So that’s the second section of the Psalm. And then in the third section he turns toward all the rest of us who will ever be reading this Psalm in the midst of our life experiences, and he says, “Come, listen to me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord; come, taste and see that the Lord is good; come, and you trust him too!” He turns toward his family, his friends, toward all who will be worshiping with him in Jerusalem, and all the rest of us down through the centuries who find life tough, and he gives encouragement to us. You see, David’s word can speak to all kinds of experiences.
  • I spoke with a friend the other day whose daughter—in—law has been diagnosed with advanced cancer.
  • I spoke with a young father who is very concerned about the welfare of his young son.
  • I had a conversation with a friend who lost her job, very unexpectedly, and she doesn’t know where to turn.
  • And a young widow whose husband died prematurely of a completely unexpected heart attack.
  • And some friends whose retirement funds have been eaten up in our economic trouble and they don’t know what they’ll do.
  • And another friend who learned that an associate was killed in a car accident the other morning.
David’s words speak meaningfully to all these experiences. So what is your story? Does your story have these pages of trouble and fear in them? If so, then this Psalm is for you, my friend. Now, what do you think David wants us to learn for our encouragement? To find out, join me in looking at this Psalm more closely. As I told you this Psalm, this testimony, was written in retrospect. It’s written after some time has passed. Usually the greatest lessons in life, the greatest testimonies, do come later. I mean it’s after it all has happened, and we’ve suffered, and we’ve cried to God, and some time passes in which we’ve had the opportunity to reflect back on it, that certain things become clear. Then we begin to see the big issues. And then we more clearly recognize the hand of God that has held us and helped us. Most of the Psalms that contain a testimony of being rescued by God are written in that way. So I think one of the big lessons David has for us is to be patient. Our best testimonies don’t come in the middle of our trouble, but some time afterwards. Incidentally, this Psalm is called an acrostic, or alphabetic, Psalm, with each verse beginning with another letter from the Hebrew alphabet. And that means it was not written in a hurry, on the run. It was crafted carefully. David probably labored over it, and that means it took a good bit of time to learn the lessons he has here. So I think he’s counseling us to patiently trust in our tough times. Try not to run way ahead of God. Just hold on, keep crying to God, and be patient until the day when we are able to look back and talk about how he has rescued us. You know, so often we want to hold God to a very rapid time schedule and demand that he help us right away. We certainly do that with other people. For instance, the other day a fellow was talking about a visit he and some friends had made to a pizza shop for lunch. The four of them each ordered a pan pizza and the waitress put a timer down on the table and said, “We’ve got a special going on right now. If you don’t get your pan pizza within five minutes, you get it free.” So like little kids they watched the timer the whole time. Four minute…, four and a half …, four and three quarter minutes. Their pizzas finally arrived at five minutes and 38 seconds! Some of the others at the table were ready to leave her off the hook. But my friend refused to give in. When the waitress came he firmly said, “Well, I guess you owe us a free pizza.” Then he explained that he was really saying to her, “Hey, we didn’t get what we ordered in the allotted amount of time, so it’s up to you to pay up.” And then he reflected on the fact that we sometimes are guilty of treating God that way. “Time’s up. You owe me God. I prayed and you didn’t save my marriage right away. I prayed and you didn’t heal me right away. The timer’s running and I’m not seeing results.” Well, David would counsel us against that. He would advise us that sometimes we won’t recognize God’s rescue until ample time has passed; we’ve had more opportunity to reflect on it; and we see things we didn’t see at first. And David also teaches us here to pray what I prefer to call “double—level prayers”. Let me explain what I mean by that. If you listen carefully to verses 4 and 6 you learn that David is praying about two different things, or on two different levels. He prays about his troubles and he prays about his fears. Now, they are two different things. His troubles are the actual tangible events and circumstances that are making life tough — Saul’s threat, Saul’s sword, being exposed in Gath when he thought he was sufficiently disguised, hiding in a cave. For you and me our troubles are actual events —cancer, heart disease, broken marriage, addiction, family or business problems, or anything similar. Those are troubles and we do well to be praying about them. David called to God and asked for help to come out of his troubles. But the other matter he prays about, the other “level” is that of his fears. “I sought the Lord about my fears”, he says. Now our fears are different than our trouble. Trouble, I said, is the actual event or circumstance that is making life tough. Fear is what goes on inside our hearts about it all. If David’s trouble was Saul and his threats, then David’s fear is when his mind and heart run way ahead and imagine the worst case scenario. The trouble may be Saul; but the fear is that he may die at Saul’s sword. The trouble may be this disease I have, but my fear is that I may have intense pain and die from it. The trouble may be the disobedience of my children, but the fear may be about the consequences of their behavior or that I will feel like a failure as a parent. Fear is when our mind runs way ahead and imagines the worst case scenario. Troubles and fears are different issues. They are separate matters. But David’s lesson here is that we must be praying about both of them — both the actual trouble, and about the fears that whirl around inside us. We pray about both of them. Not only that but according to this Psalm, David dealt with his fears first. And with good reason for sometimes our fears are a bigger problem than our actual troubles. Have you ever found that? Fears first, troubles second. I think it’s important to remember both levels. We easily remember to pray about our troubles, but here David is counseling us to also bring our fears to God. And then David proceeds to another lesson. He invites us all to experience the goodness of God. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him,” verse 8 says. Now there are two very important thoughts there — God is good, and I want you to experience that for yourself. That’s the whole point of this Psalm. I have been rescued by a good God. Yes, a God who rescues from trouble and fear is a good God. But David makes it even more explicit. First he talks about the eyes of this good God, “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,” he says in verse 15. Now that is what we call anthropomorphic language. In other words, not something that is literally and physically true, but a way of speaking of God in human terms so we can understand the point. God is observant, watchful, loving. When they dedicated Solomon’s Temple they prayed that the eyes of the Lord would always be open to that place. In the previous Psalm he says that the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him. Proverbs 15:3 says, “the eyes of the Lord are everywhere.” Now, that’s not intended to spook us as though God is everywhere spying on us, but it’s an expression of God’s loving care. He is watchful, tender, concerned, loving. The emphasis is that you can count on God’s care because he keeps his eye lovingly on you. Take comfort in that. And then in the same verse he talks about the ears of God. (v.15) “His ears are attentive to their cry….” That’s another of those anthropomorphisms, speaking of God in terms that we can understand. And it means that this God who is busy running the whole world, is also a personal heavenly Father who is able to hear every cry for help and every groaning fear. He is able to bend low and turn his ear to us that he hears and feels all our cries and complaints. Just think about all the comfort that’s in there for us! Sure, “the righteous cry out and he hears them….” (v.17) And then David adds even more from his reflection. God surround us with his protection that is expressed by the care of his angels. Verse 7 says “the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them.” Some Bible scholars believe that may be a reference to Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God before his incarnation in the manger at Bethlehem. As the second person of the Trinity he is at times referred to as the “angel of the Lord.” Others are convinced this is a reference to the protecting ministry of what we normally think of as angels, those spiritual beings created by God, but sent by God to care for us. Hebrews describes them as “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Heb.1:14). So, either way, it clearly is a reference to the special protection that is given to the children of God, protection from a God who is good! So when you put all of that together — the eyes of God that watch over us lovingly, the ears of God that listen for our cries, and the angels of God who protect us — then we know what David meant when he said “Taste and see that God is good,” and that we are blessed when we find refuge in him. No wonder, then, that he issues an invitation for all of us to come and trust God. It’s natural, isn’t it, that when we have experienced special care, we want others to experience the same. And so when David is thrilled at the goodness of God which has rescued him, the angels of God who have protected him, the eyes of the Lord that have watched over him, and the ears of the Lord that have listened for his cries, he wants you and me to experience the same. So his invitation is clear. “Taste and See” for yourself. “Come, listen to me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” No matter what your needs are; no matter what trouble you are dealing with; no matter what fears are whirling around in your heart, put your trust in the Lord for he is good. You will find refuge there. But what David could know only in the most minimal fashion is that the goodness of God would be expressed most completely when God’s Son would enter this world as the Lord Jesus Christ to become our Savior. And he did come. He was born in the manger at Bethlehem; he brought the truth of God; he practiced the healing love of God; and he ultimately paid the price for our sins in his death at Calvary. So if you really want to know how good God is, if you really want to know what it’s like being rescued, then bring all your needs, your troubles and your fears, and all your sinfulness to this Savior at Calvary. Trust him with your eternal welfare. Then, like never before, you will be able to join David in exclaiming, “I’ve been rescued”. There will be a special comfort and security for you in this life, right in the middle of whatever is making life tough now. And I hope and pray you may know that through Christ. But the day is coming when you and I will leave this life and stand before God. And then, when he welcomes us into glory through the finished work of his Son, Jesus Christ, we can exclaim like we’ve never exclaimed before, “I’ve been rescued!” Then we will really know how good God is!

About the Author

Howard Vanderwell

Howard Vanderwell was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in 1962. He received his M.Div. and Th.M. degree from Calvin Theological Seminary and his D.Min. at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. He has served as pastor to four congregations over 40 years in Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. After leaving the pastorate in 2002 he began a new ministry at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary. He is currently a staff member at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and Adjunct Professor of Worship at Calvin Theological Seminary. He consults with local congregations, provides worship materials, leads conferences and workshops, and teaches courses on worship at Calvin Seminary. Howard’‘s interests include planning, leading and evaluating worship, preaching, and worship renewal throughout the evangelical church. “My life-long prayer, from my days as a child, was that I might be honored to serve as a Christian Reformed pastor preaching the Word of God to encourage and challenge his people. I consider the forty years of my pastoral ministry to have been the most valuable way in which I could have invested those years! When I consult with pastors, teach and mentor students, hold conferences for worship leaders, or write worship planning materials, my aim is to equip and inspire others to serve their Lord and Savior by making a whole-hearted investment in his church and his people. Such ministry is certainly not without its stresses and discouragements, and those of us who have found such joy in a life-time of ministry are uniquely fitted to encourage others.” Howard lives in Hudsonville, MI with his wife Eleanor. They have three married sons and ten grandchildren ages 5 through 19. His hobbies are yard-gardening, walking, photography and model railroading.

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