In the midst of this Covid-19
pandemic we’re all learning about “social distancing” as we adjust to being
shut up indoors. For extroverts like myself, the isolation from my friends, routine
and church family has been a difficult adjustment. Looking for some kind of encouragement,
I opened the Bible in search of saints who went through similar “quarantine” experiences.
I discovered an interesting place where some of the Bible’s best ended up—caves.
David was running from
Saul, even though he is the heir to the throne of Israel. In his envy, rage and
insecurity Saul began to hunt David like an animal. “Wanted! Dead or Alive”
posters with David’s mug shot are posted on every palm tree in Judea. David was
a fugitive. So by 1 Sam. 22 David is hiding from Saul in the cave of
Adullam.
Caves are interesting
places to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live in one. They’re cold and damp.
There are dangerous drop-offs and confusing labyrinths where you could easily
get lost. I’m sure that David wasn’t tempted to hang a “Home Sweet Home” sign
there! And every night as he laid his head on the most comfortable rock he
could find, he knew that somewhere outside Saul and his army were scouring the
countryside looking for him. Where was God’s plan in all of this? David felt so
abandoned by God that he wrote in Psalm 142:
“I cry out loudly to
God, loudly I plead with God for mercy. I spill out all my complaints before
him, and spell out my troubles in detail: As I sink in despair, my spirit
ebbing away,you know how I’m feeling, Know the danger I’m in,the traps hidden
in my path. Look right, look left—there’s not a soul who cares what happens!
I’m up against it, with no exit—bereft, left alone. I cry out, God, call out:
‘You’re my last chance, my only hope for life!’ Oh listen, please listen; I’ve
never been this low. Rescue me from those who are hunting me down; I’m no match
for them. Get me out of this dungeon so I can thank you in public. Your people
will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!” (Psalm
142:1-7, MSG)
Caves are effective
classrooms in the school of faith. Charles Spurgeon observed that David prayed
when he was in the cave, but later when he was in the palace, he fell into
temptation and sin with Bathsheba. In other words, if David had prayed half as
much when he was in the palace as he did when he was in the cave, it would have
been better for him. Spurgeon added,
“The caves have heard the
best prayers, just as some birds sing best in cages. God’s people shine
brightest in the dark. There is many an heir of heaven who never prays so well
as when he is driven by necessity to pray. Some shall sing aloud upon their
beds of sickness, whose voices were hardly heard when they were well; and some
shall sing God’s high praises in the fire, who did not praise him as they
should before the trial came. If any of you are in dark and gloomy positions, may
the prayer of the cave be the very best of your prayers!”[1]
Elijah was another cave
dweller. Soon after he had just called down fire from heaven, trouncing Baal
and beheading his prophets, the bold man of God was in retreat. After his big
hero moment, Elijah is afraid of the retaliation of a pagan princess named
Jezebel, who couldn't have been more than 90 lbs. soaking wet. Where do we find
him? High-tailing it out of the country to a cave in Horeb. (By the way, this is
the same cave in Exodus 33 where Moses hid in “the cleft of the rock” in order
to view the glory of God passing by, more on that later).
The panic of the situation
was too great for God’s prophet of fire. The exhausted man said, “It is enough;
now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings
19:4).
Graciously, God dispatched
an angel to give Elijah food and then the Lord had a heart-to-heart with him.
Elijah did what discouraged people do. He isolated himself. He selectively and inaccurately
reported the facts, focusing on the negatives and not the positives. He underestimated
the strength of God and overestimated the strength of the enemy.
In that very special
encounter with Almighty God, Moses was refreshed for the ministry to which God called
him. And in the same way, Elijah was revived in the same cave when he heard the
“sill, small voice of God.”
Are you noticing a pattern
yet? David prayed in the cave of Adullam because the fear of death was palpable.
Elijah wanted to die, but God brought him back from the brink in the cave of
Horeb. In each instance, God gave hope and help from the icy hand of death.
Fast forward several
hundred years. It looked as if Jesus was a total failure. His disciples
scattered and the people He came to save had rejected Him. After six agonizing
hours on the cross, Jesus finally gave up the ghost. His body was wrapped like
a mummy and put in a cave offered by Joseph of Arimathea, fulfilling Isaiah’s
prophecy, “And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his
death” (Is. 53:9).
A heavy stone was rolled
over the mouth of the unused tomb, sending the message that no one was getting
in or out. Max Lucado wrote:
“God put Himself in a
dark, tight, claustrophobic room and allowed them to seal it shut. The Light of
the World was mummified in cloth and shut in ebony. The Hope of Humanity was
locked away in a sepulcher. We should look at the massive stone rolled in front
of the Messiah’s tomb and ponder how far He had come. Beyond the infant wrapped
in feed trough. Past the adolescent Savior in Nazareth. Even surpassing the
King of kings nailed to a tree mounted on a hill was this: God in a grave.
Nothing is blacker than a tomb, a lifeless as a pit, as permanent as the crypt.
The next time you find yourself entombed in a darkened world of fear, remember
that. The next time pain boxes you in world of horror, remember the tomb. The
next time a stone seals your exit to peace, think about that musty tomb outside
Jerusalem.”[2]
Of course, we know the rest
of the story, three days later Jesus emerged from that cave, victorious over
death. Caves are where God does some of His best work—David, Elijah, Jesus.
During this current crisis,
it may feel like the world is “stuck in cave” of fear, darkness and uncertainty.
We may underestimate the strength of God and overestimate the strength of the
disease. But as God’s people, let’s not miss this opportunity, because it’s in
those places of darkness and solitude that God resurrects dead things. -DM
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