King David and Barred From Public Worship
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
My heart is aching to be in church. And not a sign up, stand six feet apart, kind of church, but a packed out, shoulder-to-shoulder kind of church. Where you stand and sing with the voices of the saints breaking in all around.
This pandemic has been a rude awakening to the Western church. We are used to doing what we want and when we want without restriction. But I’m starting to wonder if there could be some good in this right now; in being banned from public worship. For the past several days I have had a heaviness and grief that I just can’t shake. There are several reasons for the heaviness but I know that one is that I miss being in church with as many people as can be packed in the building.
What could possibly be good about the fact that, not only can we not be packed out, but we can’t even be there at all? I believe it is creating hunger and thirst. Those are sensations that a fat and happy church can’t know until we have it taken away. And not just hunger and thirst to be in a congregation of worshippers but much deeper; for God himself.
This morning I woke up to a reminder of an exceptional piece of writing that a friend shared with me almost 30 years ago from The Treasury of David by Charles Spurgeon. In this huge three-volume work he exposits every verse of every Psalm. I haven’t come close to reading all of it but I have read the exposition of Psalm 42 several times and I would love to share a couple excerpts with you.
Spurgeon explains that this Psalm was written by King David when he was on the run from Absalom, his son, who wanted to kill him. Spurgeon says of the Psalm, “It is the cry of a man far removed from the outward ordinances and worship of God, sighing for the long-loved house of his God; and at the same time it is the voice of a spiritual believer, under depressions, longing for the renewal of the divine presence, struggling with doubts and fears, but yet holding his ground by faith in the living God.”
Once David has everything stripped back; every comfort and every privilege, including church, he becomes increasingly aware that what he really needs for sustenance is the presence of God, Himself. Spurgeon comments on the first verse:
Barred from public worship, David was heartsick. Ease he did not seek, honour he did not covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an urgent need of his soul; he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as an absolute necessity, like water to a stag. Like the parched traveler in the wilderness, whose skin bottle is empty, and who finds the wells dry, he must drink or die- he must have his God or faint. His soul, his very self, his deepest life, was insatiable for a sense of the divine presence. As the deer brays, so his soul prays. Give him his God and he is as content as the poor deer which at length slakes its thirst and is perfectly happy; but deny him his Lord, and his heart heaves, his chest palpitates, his whole frame is convulsed, like one who gasps for breath, or pants with long-running. The next best thing to living in the light of the Lord’s love is to be unhappy till we have it and to pant hourly after it.
I can honestly say I have rarely, if ever, known this level of hunger for the presence of God but I do believe it is much harder to know if we are surrounded by everything we want. I am realizing that the more I desire to seek the presence of God in my life, the less I am panicked about everything else. The more I “stand my ground by faith” as David did, the more I am at rest in my circumstances. Not that I don’t pray for the end of this pandemic or the opening of church buildings. Nor do I disagree with those advocating for religious rights and freedoms. But I do believe that when we continually preach to ourselves the truth of who God is, who we are to Him, and all that He has promised us, there is peace in our hearts.
It is also important to remember that, unlike King David, we are not living in hiding or running from our persecutors. As someone pointed out to me this week, we can still be the church. We can make phone calls and stand outside people’s doors to wave and smile at them. We can write letters and send gifts in the mail. There are also countless inspiring ministries doing powerful work who need your support. We can pray and then pray some more. Yes, we are currently “barred from public worship” but we are still the church.
