The Cave

 "Have you ever felt like just running away? Finding someplace you can escape to, someplace where you can hide? David did. He had fled, first from Saul, who had tried to kill him, and then from Achish, king of Gath, where he had also feared for his life. I Samuel 22:1 says, "David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam." When he got to that cave he was spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted. In such a condition, cave living can be very attractive. It was to David. Might it be to you as well? Are you tempted today to find your own cave? Are you in one now?

David was a man after God's heart, with a rich relationship with Him. The last place we would expect to find him would be a cave, yet there he was, and through no fault of his own. All he'd tried to do was to serve his Lord and his king. His reward was to be falsely accused, hated, misunderstood, pursued, and in danger of his life. God had promised David a kingdom, but a cave is not much of a kingdom, yet it was in that cave that his kingdom began to come into being. We've been promised a Kingdom as well, and for us it often begins in a "cave" as well.

Verse 2 of this passage reads, "And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about 400 men with him." From these came David's "mighty men, the core of his army, the strongest army that area of the world would know to that point. And it began in a cave.

Bryan Cutshall, in his book, Where Are The Armorbearers?, writes about the many beautiful songs David composed in that cave, and other types of cave he would find himself in. He calls them "cave songs, " and talks of how often David would call on the Lord from "out of the depths," which is where he so often felt his life was. We can relate to this. Coming into the fullness of our Kingdom inheritance is never going to be easy despite much of the popular preaching and teaching of today. The journey to His throne room will have many a cave, many a tear, and above all, a cross. We'll have our own times of crying out from the depths, and we'll stand alongside some excellent company; the woman with the issue of blood in Luke, the Old Testament prophets, the woman who broke an alabaster box upon the feet of Christ, and washed them with her tears, and Paul and Silas, beaten and chained in a Philippian jail. Cutshall calls these, "the choir of the cave," those who cry out to Him from the depths. Their song, as did David's, as will yours, gets God's attention and heart, and it will carry us along into the Kingdom He calls us to. His Kingdom, which is only reached through a cross and a cave. 

God brought to David, the cavedweller, 400 more cave dwellers. Perhaps this sounds a lot like your situation, your family, your church, and your ministry. What will you do? What will I do? Will we sing in the cave, out of the depths, and by doing so, lay hold of our Kingdom inheritance? There's an old hymn whose title I can't remember, but has a lyric that says, "It's the song of the soul set free." That song is written in the cave and first sung there. It leads to the cross. It leads to freedom. It leads us home. Out of the depths and unto the heights. With Him, from the cave.

Blessings,
Pastor O