Well, let us turn to the psalm that we've just read, Psalm 142. And I want to direct you just to four words there at the beginning of verse 6. Attend unto my cry. I'll read the verse through. Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I. But thinking in particular of those opening words of the verse, attend unto my cry.

We want God to attend to our prayers when we come before him in this fashion, of course. We pray, and we should pray in faith with that expectation that God will answer all our petitions. He never says, to the seed of Jacob, seek him, I face in vain. In fact, we have those remarkable words in Isaiah 65, 24, before they call, I will answer. Whilst they are yet speaking, I will hear." Interesting, the order, the syntax there, even before they call, God says, He will answer. And whilst they are speaking, whilst they are praying, He will hear. The answering comes really before the hearing.

This is the God that we are privileged then to have our dealings with when we come to pray. Now, I'm sure it's a psalm that's not unfamiliar. We've looked at parts of this verse or this psalm on previous occasions, and we're told, aren't we, in the title that it's a maskil.

That means it's a psalm to give instruction, and it's a psalm of David, a prayer when he was in the cave interesting there are two separate occasions when we have David in the cave in 1st Samuel in chapter 22 and the opening verse is there we read of him going to the cave Adolim and there the people gather to him and within no time there are 600 men with him.

But then a couple of chapters later we see him also in another cave at Engidi and on that occasion of course His men, together with David, are in the sides of the cave, and King Saul comes in. David has every opportunity, really, to take the life of the king, but he will not touch the Lord's anointed. Well, there are those two occasions. Which of the two is difficult to really ascertain, but one would imagine that the prayer really is associated more particularly with what we read concerning the cave of Dolom. But here is David in the cave and obviously feeling himself to be in very real need.

He knows he has his enemies, his persecutors that he speaks of here at the end of this sixth verse, how stronger than he is. But he can look to God who is all his strength and all his salvation. I cried unto the Lord, with my voice, with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication, he says in the opening words.

Well, first of all tonight to say something with regards to this cry, the cry of faith, the cry of faith, it's a prayer that we have in the psalm, many of the psalms are prayers of course, But it's also a book of praises, but quite specifically this one in the title informs us that it is very much a prayer. And isn't that where spiritual life begins? If we have any spiritual life, it will first manifest itself in prayers to the Lord God. There will be cries to Him. By nature we're dead in trespasses and sins, But when there comes that quickening in the soul, it is evidenced by a cry. It's interesting because, of course, in a natural birth, the first thing the mother and the husband is listening for is for the cry of the babe as it comes forth from the womb, the indication of life. And so, too, where there is that spiritual birth, that new birth.

And remember how In Acts chapter 9, Ananias, that faithful disciple of the Lord, is assured that there has been a change in that persecutor, Saul of Tarsus. He's directed of the Lord, isn't he, to go to the street called Straight and to the house where he will find this man Saul, the persecutor. But he's to anoint him, that he might receive his sight. Something's happened. And of course what has happened is that this man has been born again and there's evidence now of real spiritual life. He is one who will confess the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is an Ananias assured that there is a change in the man when he is told, Behold he prieth.

Behold He prayeth, we read there in Acts 9 and verse 11. He would have said many prayers, many prayers. He would have attended to all the regular hours of prayer as a Pharisee. But what were those prayers? They were just the prayer of a formalist. But now, oh, what real prayers. And the evidence of spiritual life is in those prayers. That's where spiritual life begins. We read in the gospel of God's own elect which cry day and night unto Him. How can we know whether we are of the election of grace or not?

Well, is that our habit? Do we cry day and night unto the Lord? Are we those who are praying to Him? What does David say here in the second verse? I poured out my complaint before Him, I showed before Him my trouble. What a privilege it is, then, to come and to make our troubles known unto the Lord. He invites us. We're to take with us words and we're to turn to Him. Our poor words, our broken sentences. And yet the Lord hears, and He hears even our sighs and our groanings.

Well, spiritual life begins with prayer, and I would say spiritual life clearly also continues, it continues with prayer. He says, doesn't he, here in verse 5, I cried unto thee, O Lord, I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. He's in the land of the living in a spiritual sense. And because he's in the land of the living, he has that new life in his soul, he is crying unto the Lord.

Unto those churches that the Apostle addresses in the New Testament time and again, exhorted to pray to the Thessalonians, Paul says, pray without ceasing. And it's just an echoing of the words of the Lord Jesus. there in in Luke 18 and verse 1 we read that men ought always to pray and not to faint those are the words of the Lord Jesus men ought always to pray and those who are the obedient servants of the Lord then must give themselves to to prayer Well, how is one moved to pray? There are many causes, of course. And David does indicate some of those in the language that he uses in the psalm.

In verse 6, he asks for deliverance. Why? Because he's persecuted. He has his enemies. Deliver me from my persecutors. for they are stronger than I, he says. Again, previous to that, in the earlier part, having uttered those words, attend unto my cry, he says, for I am brought very low.

He's not just in a low place, he's in a very low place, and it's because of these people who are his enemies. but interestingly the words that we have following in verse 7 bring my soul out of prison well we don't hear of him being imprisoned anywhere in the historical books but doubtless he did feel that in his soul bound up as it were As if he was in a prison cell, he didn't have that freedom of access and entrance.

It's not always the case, is it? When we come to pray, we feel that our prayers are entering the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth, the Lord God of hosts. There are times when our prayers seem to get no further than the ceiling. We don't feel that we have that access. We're bound up in some sense. We're like prisoners. We don't have that freedom to come abroad.

Again, in another psalm, Psalm 88, what does the psalmist say? I am shut up and I cannot come forth. How awful it is when one feels then to be in prison, not just in a low place, but a very low place there. And David, of course, here, why is he in the cave? Because of persecutions. He's having to hide himself. He's being pursued.

Isn't that the history that we have there in that first book of Samuel? Paul bent on the death of David, pursuing him. continually, as it were, seeking that he might be rid of him. And so David goes into the cave. His enemies, especially King Saul, all these things are recorded, and we know why they're recorded.

It's for our learning, Paul says there in Romans 15. Whatever things were written for time were written for our learning. Upon whom the ends of the world are come, yes. And we are those who are living in that period. That we through patience or endurance and comfort of the scriptures might have hope, he says there in that 15th chapter of Romans. It's written then for our learning that we might be encouraged to persevere in prayers. All these things that we have written in the Old Testament, not just history, but that that we can relate to. And what comfort we find many a times when we turn to this remarkable book of Psalms. This Maskell then, it's a psalm giving instruction.

And we surely would recognize that we do have enemies. We have enemies. We know there is that one who is the archenemy of the saints of God. Be sober, be vigilant, your adversary the devil is a roaring lion. Walketh about seeking whom he may devour, says Peter.

Are we not to be ignorant of his devices? He is that one who is cunning, and we have to therefore be as wise as serpents, as well as harmless as doves, when we're dealing with that great foe, the devil himself. And how cunning he is, he's not only the tempter, he's the accuser. He'll tempt, we sin, we fall, he turns, he accuses, we're ashamed, How can we ever come and make our confessions before God when we've sinned and repeated sin so many times? Oh, we're not to be ignorant then of that enemy.

And the world, the world that's all about us, the world that lies in wickedness, as we read there in 1 John, or lies in the wicked one, this is Satan's little domain, it would seem. But greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, says the apostle. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. not just Satan, but the world and all the attractions and what attractions they are to our fallen nature, the sin that is still within us, that indwelling sin, the heart deceitful, above all things and desperately wicked. We have many enemies, and that great enemy of unbelief the sin that doth so easily beset us. How can we pray when we're beset by so many doubts and so many fears, when we're told that without faith it's impossible to please God, for he that cometh to him must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of all that diligently seek him.

Well, we need then that that faith that is the gift of God. We have to ask Him for praying faith, that we might not mock Him with our unbelief. And yet the Lord deals with us in all these ways to cause us to cry and to sigh. Before faith comes we're under the law, shut up. We have to be shut up to that faith. That's how the Lord brings faith into us. He brings us to the end of ourselves. We can't do a thing.

I mean, it appears, does it not, that that was the spot that dear John Berridge was in, in that opening praise that we sang just now, 739. no help in self I find, and yet have sought it well, the native treasure of my mind is sin and death and hell. We have to come to that, the end of ourselves, to Christ for help I fly, the friend of sinners lost, a refuge sweet and sure and nigh, and there is all my trust, is the bearage in the hymn. That's what we have to come to then. We have to come to that place where we're looking to and trusting in the Lord and in Him alone.

There's nowhere else that we can turn. The cry then, the cry of faith is what we have here. Attend unto my cry for I am brought very low. deliver me from my persecutors for they are stronger than I." But the second thing I want to observe in the psalm is the fact that this psalm does clearly direct us to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Christ in all the scriptures. What do we read here at verse 4?

David says, I looked on my right hand and beheld but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul." Now, doubtless that was true of David, but in that is not David a remarkable type of the Lord Jesus Christ? What do we read at the end of the Gospels? when they come to arrest Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, they all forsook him, it says, and fled. They all forsook him and fled. Even bold Peter, with all his impetuosity, doesn't only flee, he follows the Lord, but then he denies the Lord, and denies the Lord three times, and denies him with curses.

I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul. That was the experience of the Lord Jesus. Look at what else he said here in the psalm, verse 3, When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then and there was my path." And it's punctuated here in our authorized version as a short sentence, very curt sort of sentence really. His spirit was overwhelmed. And his spirit of course was overwhelmed ultimately when he came to make the great sin-atoning sacrifice.

And we have that awful cry. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And yet, in the depths of that cry, we see the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he uses the language of appropriation, doesn't he? He doesn't say just God, he says, My God. My God. Although it appears he is forsaken, yet there's faith there.

Oh, it's the mystery. It's the mystery of the human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ and that human nature in the great mystery of the incarnation joined to the person of the eternal Son of God. And as I've said before, we can't say, well, here is Christ as a man and there is Christ as God. In everything, every action, every experience, all the words that he speaks, he's always the person who is God. Man, it's the person. We can't divide the person. He is one person, and yet in that one person there's two distinct natures. And as a man, of course, we see him there very much in a very low place, as he cries to his God and his Father in heaven, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Christ is in the psalm, and where is it that David is himself making his prayer? Well, it's in the cave, it's Adonim. The cave of Dolomus, I said, it seems that that is the particular cave that's being spoken of here. And of course, the very word of Dolomus means a resting place. And we have to rest in the one who is being spoken. We have to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. He says, Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. And my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." All the gracious words of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel. He is the place. He is our cave of Dollum in that sense. The place where we will find rest and We have to gather unto Him, don't we? The blessing upon Judah back in Genesis 49. Unto Him, Shiloh. Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be. And so it was there at the cave of Dalamo they gathered together unto King David.

And it's amazing how in no time there is quite a remarkable following. Just read the opening words of that 22nd chapter in the first book of Samuel. David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave of Dolom, and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became captain over them, and there were with him about four hundred men." And then later we read of six hundred men. Initially, David is alone, but then they gather to him.

And it's interesting because, as is often the case there in that second verse, we do have a marginal reading, discontented. And the margin indicates what that means. It means those who are bitter of soul. Those who know bitterness in their souls. They are people who are troubled. They are people Under conviction, we might say. Under conviction of sin.

These are the ones who gather unto the Lord Jesus Christ. And unto him are we to gather. Certainly when we gather together for prayers, we gather together in his name and we present our prayers only in and through his blessed mediation. those who know bitterness of soul, those who know the conviction of their sins, the whole have no need of a physician, says the Lord Jesus. I came not to call the righteous but sinners unto repentance, that faithful saying worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, says the Apostle, of whom I am chief.

And Christ is that one, of course, who is a great deliverer. He delivers his people from sin. He delivers them from the curse of the broken law, because he himself has been made a curse for them. It is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Well, Christ has therefore come to redeem his people, to save his people, those that gather together to him. Bring my soul out of prison, cries David here in that seventh verse.

That's what the Lord does, he delivers his people. And why do they want to come out of prison that I may praise thy name? The righteous shall compass me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. The psalm concludes on that lovely high note. David's cry is not a cry that's in vain. The Lord's hearing him and answering him. Attend unto my cry, says the King then. And so too with our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ knew, didn't He? He knew that the Father would hear Him, that the Father always hears Him.

Remember what we're told concerning that remarkable miracle recorded in John 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And there at verse 41 and verse 42 we're told, Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me, and I knew that Thou hearest me always. But because of the people which stand by, I said it that they may believe that Thou hast sent me. I knew, says the Lord Jesus, Thou hearest me always. And if the Lord Jesus is always heard, we can rest assured that when our prayers are in His name, our praying will not be in vain. The Lord will hear our prayers and answer our prayers.

And He's a remarkable pattern of prayer, isn't He? Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayer and supplications with strong crying and tears, and was heard, it says, in that He feared. He had the fear of God in His heart. He had a real religion, the Lord Jesus, evidenced in his prayers, though he were a son, the eternal son of God, yet learned the obedience by all that he suffered. Oh, the comfort of the psalm then is that Christ is really the one who is making this prayer. It's a prayer of David, but it's Christ. And David is the type of Christ. And then finally, just to say something with regards to the communion of saints, and we have that at the end, we've already intimated that. The righteous shall compass me about, he says there at verse seven.

And yet previously I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge vowed me, no man cared for my soul. What a change between verse 4 and what we have there at verse 7. When David was first in the cave, he was alone, but then as they come, David's family begin to come. Then there's 400 men in verse 2, and as I said later on, verse 13, there are 600 men. There are 600 men. God setteth the solitary in families.

Isn't that the comfort of a prayer meeting? Doesn't that do us good sometimes, just to be in the prayer meeting and to hear the prayers, those who speak in prayer, and to feel the truth of what they're expressing? And oftentimes I find this, I have that privilege of standing here and reading the word and trying to open up the word. And then the brethren pray, and often times I feel, well, it was worth being there to hear what the brother prayed, and what the brother said, because there was much more in his prayer than in my attempt at the preaching.

The communion of saints is a very real means of grace. and we are compassed about aren't we? Paul says with a great cloud of witnesses not only the few of us that gather here but when we think of that remarkable 11th chapter of Hebrews the catalogue of all those men and women of faith in the Old Testament Scriptures and they were just like David we read of them dwelling in dens and caves of the earth he says at the end of that chapter Well, they encompass us about when we come together to pray. Those in heaven, they encompass us, those who are spoken of here in the Old Testament Scriptures. That's what Paul is saying there at the beginning of the twelfth chapter in that particular epistle.

And it's in the same Hebrew epistle, of course, that he says, we're not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. What is that day that's approaching so fast? It's that day of the Lord's coming again. And what are we to do? We're to watch and we're to pray. And so we gather together week by week And we look to the Lord to hear and answer us. And we enjoy the fellowship of the saints, but we enjoy also, of course, that blessed fellowship with the Lord Jesus himself.

He's David here in the midst of great trials and troubles, pursued, persecuted. Well, what do we read concerning Christ? Isaiah 63, 9, in all their affliction, He was afflicted. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Remember, He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.

That's the one that we look to then as we come and pray. And these four words then, At the beginning of the sixth verse, we can say unto God, attend unto my cry. We want the Lord not only to hear, but also that the Lord would come and graciously answer our petitions. May the Lord bless us as we turn to Him in prayers. Let us now turn to Our second hymn, we'll sing the hymn 967 and the tune is Brookfield 310. God of my life, to thee I call. Afflicted at thy feet I fall, when the great water floods prevail. Leave not my trembling heart to fail. The hymn 967, the tune is 310.