368. Delivered
Joel 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
God promises deliverance: deliverance from sin, death and the devil. These are our three major enemies that seek to keep us hostage by kidnapping and enslavement. Jesus has come to set us free, rescue, save and deliver. We pray “deliver us from evil,” or “the evil one,” as it may be translated. Jesus sees the Enemies and recognizes their presence and activity in our lives, because He sees what is going on in the invisible world, the realm that is invisible to us. We don’t see the evil nor do we see the proper connections between what these enemies are doing and the actual outworking in life.
Therefore, God gives a promise and Jesus tells us to pray: Jesus has delivered us from the evil of bad things that happen to us. We believe in deliverance; and we believe that we are in trouble and danger every moment. Jesus has delivered, He is delivering, and He will deliver when He takes us from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven.
Yes, the bad things will happen, even to “good” people, although we cannot legitimately call any man good. But we pray, and we believe God hears, that we shall be delivered from the evil of the thing. The evil of the bad thing is that we might lose faith, fall out of grace, or not trust in Jesus alone. That would be eternal death in hell. From this we are delivered. But, if we are honest to God and honest with ourselves, we are not so much scared of eternal hell as we are worried about our present problems. These occupy our thoughts. We want deliverance from the present pain and discomfort. We want health and wealth now. We might say, “Yeah, fine, I will go to heaven, but what about this problem I am dealing with today?” Does God promise He will take away the snakes in the wilderness? No, but He does put up a bronze snake (the sin of the world) on a pole that if we look at it we will be delivered (the venom of the sin will not kill us). We are surrounded by sin (snakes) but we are delivered from the evil of them.
There is a condition connected to this deliverance promise, however: “call on the name of the Lord.” If you call, then I will deliver. We call when we believe; we believe when we hear; we hear when someone preaches; someone preaches when he is sent. Reverse it: God sends a preacher of the gospel; we hear the gospel; we believe; we call on the name; we are delivered. {Romans 10:13-17) We call on Jesus after we believe; we believe after we hear; we hear after the preaching; the preacher comes after God sends him. The Spirit of God is operating through this whole chain of events to deliver. God sends and preaches the gospel, He opens the ears to hear, the heart to believe, and the mouth to call, And He delivers.