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Every year at Passover the people of God replayed and relived the Exodus Salvation Event in order to appropriate it as their own by faith. Christians do the same thing with the Jesus Salvation Event every Easter, and every Sunday. “Were you there…?” In both cases the Almighty God showed His power in the utter defeat of the Enemy in order to establish a new relationship with His rescued People.

It is asked: “What happened that the Sea fled, the Jordan turned back, the mountains skipped, the earth trembled, and rocks turned to water?” What happened? God showed up! That’s all; no fight, no big battle, just the Presence of God (“the sea looked, and fled”). What happened at the Cross and the Tomb? God showed up: sin, death, and devil fled away.

Awesome, frightening, life-threatening Terror shows up when Awesome God makes His Presence known: Sin is judged and trembles, Death loses its grip, Satan is crushed and flees away. This happens when the Gospel is heard and the Sacraments received.

We can replay and relive the power of His Presence when we repent and believe the Gospel. By faith we see the enemy struck with terror, and we win again.

 

 

 

 

 

Our faith in god must always hold two contradictory truths in tension: He is both far off and close by. God is “way out there,” not just in heaven but beyond heaven and earth, outside the vast universe. Hr is so big and distant that He has to stoop down just to inspect a distant galaxy or supernova, much less little old me on planet earth.

But this great, far off God is also so close as to be always right next to me and even living inside me. Big God condescends to be involved in my petty personal problems. Faith says He is big enough to solve my problem and small enough care about it. Power and Love combine.

The mystery of the Christian faith is balancing the contradictions: holiness and Love, justice and mercy, sin and grace, law and Gospel, glory and grace, Almighty power and intimate compassion, big and small. The Incarnation resolves the tension and all becomes clear to us when we see Jesus, the God-man.

Now we can pray: “Our Father in heaven.” Is He able to answer my prayer and does he care enough to do so? He is God in Heaven = He can; He’s my Father = He will.

Blessings and good things come as natural consequences to those who keep the commandments and live a generally righteous life. Consequences are not rewards and punishments like getting a cookie or being put in time out (or going to heaven or hell). Consequences have to do with cause and effect, the natural beneficial or harmful results of thought and behavior.

Since we do not usually see unintended consequences God was gracious to give us rules. Break the rules and it ends badly; keep the laws and it turns out well. Life is that simple: “Blessed is the man that delights in His commandments.” It is Sin and Satan that make it complicated.

One would think that selfish desire would motivate humans to obey God’s Law since it brings blessings. The problem is that sinful man believes the Lie instead of the Truth. For example, lying and stealing appear to give immediate benefits: so lies the Enemy. Our Friend tells the Truth: such sins always, without fail, cause bad things; honesty and generosity always bring blessings.

Law motivation does not work because we live by sight not by faith. Motivation comes from the Spirit who gives faith in the forgiveness, love, kindness, compassion, mercy, and grace of God. The Gospel is the power.

 

 

 

 

 

The Lord God is worthy of praise by all Creation for who he is; He is also worthy of the praise of His people because of what he has done; praise Him for His wonderful works.

Who He is: gracious and merciful and full of compassion, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. What He has done: delivered his people in the Exodus, protected and provided for them in the wilderness, given them his Covenant at Sinai, given the Promised Land by overcoming the enemies.

All His wonderful works are studied and meditated upon so that we praise God more and so that we are motivated and enabled to keep his laws better; for when we praise Him and keep His commandments our lives will be wiser and better.

All God’s wonderful works were done when the Son said, “It is finished!” Finished means done, accomplished, completed, worked out in full. What Jesus did: earned complete forgiveness of sins, defeated the Enemy, granted God’s righteousness, gave eternal life, overcame Death, opened Paradise, offered a continued life of love and peace and joy today, and gave many more blessings. Truly the wonderful works of Jesus are worthy of praise.

The Son of David is the Lord who was given the seat at the right hand of God Almighty for the purpose of ruling over the enemies of God and His people. This one person, who is both God and human, has absolute authority over all the enemies who seek to destroy my life. Sin, Death, and Devil will continue to harass, tempt, and torment me until they are driven out of existence from the Eternal State at Messiah’s Second Coming. In the meantime (“until then”) my Savior and Lord is ruling and controlling them for me and for the good of His people.

This same King Messiah is also my High Priest forever, doing two things for me: 1) He is continually presenting Himself as the sacrificial Lamb claiming before God and proclaiming to Satan my grace-given and blood-bought innocence, and 2) He is continually interceding on my behalf and praying my prayer needs before Almighty God the Father.

My Friend and Shepherd is my King and Priest. I could not possibly have any greater assurance that my prayers for His Presence, kingdom, and will, for daily needs, forgiveness, overcoming, and deliverance will be answered. Jesus rules!

 

 

 

 

 

Imprecation, curse, slander, and accusation is the primary role of the Enemy, the Satan, the Accuser. No believer will escape this relentless attack from the Evil One; for this reason we pray daily: “Deliver us from the evil one.”

Our recourse is to take refuge in the Lord who delivers us through the Cross. We come under the covering of the blood of Christ and overcome. God delivers the decisive blow of violent defeat over all enemies at the Empty Tomb.

Our prayer is that the Lord will save me by His mercy since he is ever faithful; he will save me, this poor man, from those that condemn my soul. The enemies who speak evil against me will be ashamed, that is, defeated, and covered with their own confusion.

This Psalm makes sense when we see verses 6-19 as a quotation of the curses of the enemy upon me, rather than my curses upon the enemy. Then the Lord will take up these curses and turn them back on the curser. Therefore, be careful: if I ask God to damn, that curse may come back; if I ask God to forgive, that blessing will return, I am forgiven.

 

 

My heart is fixed: I will definitely praise the Lord early and often; I will praise Him with music and gusto; I will praise Him whether I am among believers or unbelievers. I will praise the Lord because His love, His faithfulness, and His glory is so big and grand the whole earth cannot contain them. Love, faithfulness and glory reaches to the heavens and beyond. The love of Christ is so high and deep and broad and wide that we can’t comprehend it or believe it; so ask Him to show you.

Once I have the proper perspective on the size of God’s Love I confidently ask for His help from trouble caused by my enemies. My spiritual enemies are trying to take away my peace (they actually can’t) by my surrendering it through unbelief. They seek to steal my joy of living (they actually can’t) by drawing my attention away from Jesus alone.

Man’s help is vain: “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put me together again.” But with the Lord we will do valiantly: it is He who will tread down our enemies. Praise Him for his love: it restores peace and joy.

 

 

 

 

The faithful love of God redeems from Devil, delivers from Sin, and saves from Death; mercy endures forever, the three enemies do not. The eternal love of the Lord rescues from death, caused by sin; this salvation is described in four metaphors, within this pattern: crisis of dying, prayer for help, salvation by God, call to praise.

First, God brings us from the desert of imminent death, the world, into the inhabited city of God’s Kingdom.

Second, He sets us free from the prison of sin and death, sentenced there for rebellion, into the freedom of life and light.

Third, He heals us from sicknesses, reminding of and approaching death, restoring life and health.

Fourth, He stills the storms of the sea of life, with its ups and downs and dangers, by bringing us into the safe haven of his eternal presence.

The Lord wounds and heals, kills and makes alive, allows weal and woe; all of life is under His control, no piece of life is unnoticed. And more, we ask and He gives the wisdom to observe the hand of God and to understand the steadfast love, the lovingkindness, of the Lord in everything.

The confession of the sins of the people over a period of time makes a long list. The Sin List is a recounting of the history of Israel from the Salvation from Egypt to the Exile in Babylon. The rebellion, the idolatry, the unbelief is staggering and startling in its depth and scope. But then, a confession of the sins of our own lifetimes could just as revealing. We also confess our sins and sincerely repent of them.

The purpose of this laundry list is to beg the mercy of God and ask for salvation and deliverance from exile; once again. The implicit hope is that the Lord will see how sorry we are and take pity. This is a false hope because, while sincere repentance is necessary, it is not the sincerity or sorrow or the penitence itself that moves God to forgiveness and salvation; it is the compassion and lovingkindness of God himself. For us, it is the blood of Jesus that causes Him to forgive and save.

“He repented according to the multitude of his mercies.” It is always “for the sake of Christ” and not because of our repentance that God repents. In this way the great Enemy, Sin, is overcome.

 

 

 

 

God keeps His promises; he made a covenant and he was faithful to fulfill it. This Psalm recounts that history. The covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was to give Land, Offspring and Blessing to the nations. The covenant is fulfilled in spades in Jesus Christ in the NT.

The emphasis in this Psalm is on the Land that was promised to God’s people. The Lord took care of the Patriarchs, sent Joseph, then Moses, gave judgments, did miracles, took the Promised Land. God did all that so that you on your part would “keep his laws.”

The fulfillment of Promised Land goes through and comes out in the NT as: eternal life, inheritance of heaven, forgiveness of sins and salvation, the kingdom of God ruling in the hearts of believers, resurrection, Paradise, new heaven and new earth, and such.

In order to keep covenant the Lord had to bring judgment, overcome, and drive out the Enemy (the gods of Egypt and the heathen gods of Canaan). So also judgment had to come upon Sin, Death and Devil in gentleness on the cross and in violence at the tomb. So also judgment comes in daily repentance and faith. Now: Keep His Laws, by the power of the Gospel.