Tag: deliverance

Born to Die (Judges 13:2-24)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The angel and Manoah, by Sadao Watanabe, 1972

There was a man from Zorah named Manoah. Manoah was from the family of Dan. His wife was not able to have children. The Messenger of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You’ve never been able to have a child, but now you will become pregnant and have a son. Now you must be careful. Don’t drink any wine or liquor or eat any unclean  food. You’re going to become pregnant and have a son. You must never cut his hair because the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.”

The woman went to tell her husband. She said, “A man of God came to me. He had a very frightening appearance like the Messenger of God. So I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. He told me, ‘You’re going to become pregnant and have a son. So don’t drink any wine or liquor or eat any unclean food because the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from the time he is born until he dies.’ ”

Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord, “Please, Lord, let the man of God you sent come back to us. Let him teach us what we must do for the boy who will be born.”

God did what Manoah asked. The Messenger of God came back to his wife while she was sitting out in the fields. But her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran quickly to tell her husband. She said, “The man who came to me the other day has just appeared to me again.”

Manoah immediately followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”

“Yes,” he answered.

Then Manoah asked, “When your words come true, how should the boy live and what should he do?”

The Messenger of the Lord answered Manoah, “Your wife must be careful to do everything I told her to do. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevines, drink any wine or liquor, or eat any unclean food. She must be careful to do everything I commanded.”

Manoah said to the Messenger of the Lord, “Please stay while we prepare a young goat for you to eat.”

But the Messenger of the Lord responded, “If I stay here, I will not eat any of your food. But if you make a burnt offering, sacrifice it to the Lord.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the Messenger of the Lord.)

Then Manoah asked the Messenger of the Lord, “What is your name? When your words come true, we will honor you.”

The Messenger of the Lord asked him, “Why do you ask for my name? It’s a name that works miracles.”

So Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and sacrificed them to the Lord on a rock he used as an altar. While Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did something miraculous. As the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Messenger of the Lord went up in the flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they immediately bowed down with their faces touching the ground.

The Messenger of the Lord didn’t appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah knew that this had been the Messenger of the Lord. So Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die because we have seen God.”

But Manoah’s wife replied, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He would not have let us see or hear all these things just now.”

So the woman had a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up, and the Lord blessed him. (God’s Word Translation)

The Sacrifice of Manoah, by Charles Blanc (1813-1882)

In the anticipation of Christ’s birth, we are reminded today that there have been extraordinary births in history – a sign that the delivery of a baby will lead to a deliverance of the people.

The ancient Israelites were yet again in one of their downward spirals into apostasy. As a result, their arch-nemesis, the Philistines, had domination over them. The tribe of Dan – from which Samson was born into – was geographically situated in such a way that they would have borne the brunt of Philistine oppression.

In the case of miraculous births in Holy Scripture, an angel comes to announce the coming child. These sorts of situations always have an infertile woman who was not planning on becoming a mother. And in many cultures, including Israel, a son born to a woman who was childless for a long time is recognized as a particularly special gift from God.

There are typically, therefore, high expectations that such a special child is destined for great things in this life. Indeed, Samson would become an extraordinary person by initiating the deliverance of Israel from the Philistines.

Samson, according to the angel, was not only to make sure he never eats any unclean food, but also was to be set apart from his very conception as a Nazirite – one who has the special rules of abstinence from alcohol, cutting the hair, and touching corpses. (Numbers 6:1-8)

From the very beginning of Samson’s existence in the womb of his mother, the Spirit of God was with him and began empowering him for his destiny of deliverance.

Since we know the rest of the story, as contained in the Bible, we understand that the way the deliverance of Israel came was not by any sort of conventional means. It was a rather circuitous and complicated set of circumstances and decisions which brought about Israel’s freedom from oppression.

In a similar way, the deliverance which Jesus secured – not only for Israel, but according to Christianity, for all nations – came about through unexpected and tragic circumstances. This is why many Christians will state that Jesus was born to die – because his death, like Samson’s, brought about a great saving event that vastly outdid anything done during life.

Perhaps you existentially know something in this season about such bittersweet circumstances and events. It could be that you are experiencing a situation that is both very sad and quite joyous at the same time.

So, may you, especially, in this time of year, find satisfaction in your grief, and contentment in your lament. May the angel’s announcement stir in your soul the peace that passes all understanding. May the Lord be with you, my friend.

Soli Deo Gloria

Good News For Those In Need (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations…

“For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations. (New International Version)

This section of Isaiah’s prophecy looks forward to a better day. After centuries of downward spiraling into disobedience, the people found themselves on hard times.

In the prophet’s day, God’s people and their lives needed to be rebuilt, restored, and renewed; they needed salvation and deliverance; and the good news of healing, freedom, and comfort. 

The proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor is a reference to the Old Testament command to practice the year of Jubilee. The Jubilee was to occur every fiftieth year of Israel’s existence in the Promised Land. For forty-nine years there were individuals and families that would incur debt; indenture themselves into servitude in order to survive; perhaps land in a debtor’s prison; and, work hard in the fields that they once owned. 

The Jubilee Year, by Yoram Raanan

These were, indeed, hard times. But after the forty-nine years, on the fiftieth year, the debts were erased; slaves were freed; fields allowed to rest; and, the land restored back to its original owners.

God’s deliverance is not only spiritual, but also very tangible and real. Salvation is not just otherworldly, merely looking forward to the end of the age; there’s also the anticipation of transformation here and now.

The recipients of good news are those who are in bad circumstances. God turns toward the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, those who mourn, and the faint of spirit. God really does have a special concern for the lowly and the weak. 

It’s significant to note that, Israel as a whole, found themselves in need – not because they were victims of adverse situations – but because they failed to obey the stipulations of their covenant with God. 

For example, we have no evidence that the Israelites actually even practiced the Jubilee. By the time fifty years came down the pike, after God gave them the Promised Land, they had slid so far down the spiritual drain that it was completely off their radar to practice a Jubilee. 

It seems no one had any intention of forgiving debts, freeing their indentured servants, giving back the land to original owners, and providing the land itself with a well-deserved Sabbath rest. 

To not practice the Jubilee was to rob people of their land and be unjust to them. Yet, God loves justice and hates robbery. God pays attention to those who are not getting their very real and tangible needs met. So, God speaks words of hope and deliverance for those in circumstances beyond their ability to cope with.

The first few verses of today’s Old Testament lesson are the words that Jesus turned to and read in the synagogue when he began his earthly ministry. Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of this promise to deliver and provide. He came to usher in a Jubilee celebration that would have no end.

It may be easy to overlook these verses, believing that they don’t pertain to us. Gentiles are under no obligation to practice a Jubilee. After all, many people are blessed, both material and spiritual. Furthermore, we can always identify persons who are in much more need than we are. 

And yet, it’s important to recognize that the maladies of our hearts are very real. There are specific conditions in our lives that leave us in bondage and in need of restoration, renewal, and revitalization, just like the Israelites of old. 

Therefore, we must not suppress those realities and those needs, but name the conditions which are packed away in a closet of our heart deep inside us, such as:

  • the love of things and money
  • severed relationships
  • old grudges
  • hidden addictions
  • domestic violence
  • denial of depression
  • secret affairs
  • fear and anxiety
  • anger and hatred
  • hoarding of resources and greed

Outward smiles and small talk conversations may hide the truth from others, but they do nothing to hide ourselves from a God for whom everything is laid bare.

The good news is not just for someone else who has “obvious” needs. The gospel must touch our lives and bring us freedom, so that we can pass on good news to the legion of social ills that make our world sick. 

There are people all around us who need spiritual and emotional, mental and material help. Yet we will not have eyes to see them, or hearts to help them, if we ourselves stuff our burdens so deep within that we are blind and unable to see others.

What’s more, on the other hand, we may too easily misread these verses in a manner it was never intended to be heard, as if we are more in need than we actually are: 

“The Lord’s Spirit of consumer choices is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the middle-class. He has sent me to bind up the half-hearted, to proclaim more options for the limited, and release from Black Friday for the buyers, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s Cyber-Monday.” 

We may not be so crass as to say this out loud, but we might tend to misinterpret Bible passages, so as to avoid our own great poverty of heart.

And when we become expert at stuffing our emotions and our needs, we then fail to see the year of Jubilee. We may believe that other people, “those people,” need Isaiah’s words. However, we are also in need of the year of Jubilee. 

The truth for many is that they are either one paycheck, one prodigal kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one drink, one affair, or one bad decision away from being one of “those people” – the people we typically identify as in need – the ones that bad things happen to – the ones we do not want to live next door to us.

We may not yet be vulnerable enough to admit our situation; and so, we keep practicing the denial of our spiritual poverty. Everyone is brokenhearted about something or someone, such as:

  • a wayward son or daughter
  • an unfulfilled dream
  • a lost relationship
  • a difficult illness or health diagnosis
  • a crisis situation

In addition, everybody is in bondage to something we would rather not admit; everyone needs renewal and restoration. 

What should we do? Where are we to turn?

Let’s turn from the things that have caused us to be in poverty and in prison, and delight in the Lord our God. Rejoice in the Lord.

God will make a sprout come up, and cause it to grow. 

God will rebuild our ruined souls. 

God will restore the places of our lives that have been devastated. 

God will even renew the places that have not seen renewal for generations. 

It begins with you and me allowing the justice of God to work within us, and not only for other people.

God cannot bring comfort to those who do not mourn; the Lord cannot turn grief into joy if there is no acknowledgment of a dire situation. To be an oak of righteousness, there must be a confession of despair and an allowance of the justice of God through Jesus Christ to work its way completely through us.

Let the Lord replace a head of grief with a crown of beauty. Let God place a garment of praise to replace the stinky clothes of grumbling. And, in this season of Advent, herald the coming of the Christ child as the hope of us all, to the glory of God. Amen.

Struggling to Accept (Habakkuk 2:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The prophet Habakkuk cries out to God, by Unknown 19th century artist

I will stand at my guard post.
I will station myself on the wall.
I will watch to see what he will say to me
and what answer I will get to my complaint.

Then the Lord answered me,
“Write the vision.
Make it clear on tablets
so that anyone can read it quickly.
The vision will still happen at the appointed time.
It hurries toward its goal.
It won’t be a lie.
If it’s delayed, wait for it.
It will certainly happen.
It won’t be late.

“Look at the proud person. He is not right in himself.
But the righteous person will live because of his faithfulness.
Also because wine is treacherous
he is arrogant and never rests.
He has a large appetite like the grave.
He is like death—never satisfied.
He gathers all the nations to himself.
He collects all the people to himself. (God’s Word Translation)

The prophet Habakkuk is unique among the prophetic books of the Old Testament. It is more an account of the prophet’s own wonderings and questions before God, than it is bringing a specific word from God to the people.

The book of Habakkuk revolves around the prophet’s queries to the Lord; the Lord’s responses; and the prophet’s struggles to wrap both his head and his heart around those answers.

Habakkuk struggled with the rampant sins of injustice and unrighteousness amongst his own people. He contended with God about how long all this was going to go on. Today’s Old Testament lesson is something of a lament – grieving the loss of justice and righteousness, and longing for God’s salvation from the nation’s troubles. Habakkuk was determination to name the evil, bring it before God, and wait with a determined spirit for a divine response.

The prophet asked a question, and waited for an answer. His complaint is an age old one. He was weary of seeing injustice day after day, of observing the arrogant and the wicked exploit the poor and the needy. He wanted to hear from God; and when the awaited response finally came, it wasn’t what Habakkuk was expecting.

Habakkuk’s first question is one that many today can relate to:

How long, O Lord, am I to cry for help,
but you will not listen?
I cry out to you, “There’s violence!”
yet you will not come to the rescue.
Why do you make me see wrongdoing?
And why do you watch wickedness? (Habakkuk 1:2-3, GW)

God answered the prophet’s question. And Habakkuk didn’t like the answer, at all:

I am going to send the Babylonians,
that fierce and reckless nation.
They will march throughout the earth
to take possession of lands that don’t belong to them. (Habakkuk 1:6, GW)

The problem with this answer, is that, even though the prophet’s own people were unjust and violent, the Babylonians were an even worse lot of people. It was nonsense to Habakkuk that God would use an evil nation to judge God’s own people. So, the prophet asked yet another question of God:

Why do you keep watching treacherous people?
Why are you silent when wicked people swallow those
who are more righteous than they are? (Habakkuk 1:13, GW)

There are many persons who freely admit they are sinful. There is a problem, however, when a person points to others whom they believe are more sinful than they are. Habakkuk, like many contemporary believers, essentially says, “Well, I’m a sinner. I’m not perfect. But I’m not like the Babylonians! They don’t even worship God! And they do a lot worse things than I do!”

If one wants divine judgment, then one must be content with whom it comes from, and how it is done. Otherwise, the person seeks to be the judge, instead of letting the Lord handle the trouble.

We all struggle with navigating the injustice of this world. People of faith will discern that they must trust the Lord by viewing God’s deliverance and actions with a big picture perspective. They remember that God has acted with faithfulness and justice in the past; and the Lord can do it again.

Believers may have to endure some dark valleys, hard circumstances, and plenty of suffering; yet they trust that God will show up. They only need to wait patiently for divine deliverance. Eventually, we all need to conclude with the prophet, after waiting and wrestling over God’s divine plan for the situation we don’t like:

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19, NIV)

The prophet finally accepted the words of God; and, despite the circumstances, this willingness to receive those words opened to him the possibility to take joy and confidence yet again in the Lord.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right If I surrender to His will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.

The Trouble Is Turned (Esther 7:1-10)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
The Coronation of Queen Esther, from the 1617 Scroll of Esther, Ferrara, Italy.

So the king and Haman came to have dinner with Queen Esther. On the second day, while they were drinking wine, the king asked Esther, “What is your request, Queen Esther? It will be granted to you. And what would you like? Even if it is up to half of the kingdom, it will be granted.”

Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, Your Majesty, spare my life. That is my request. And spare the life of my people. That is what I ask for. You see, we—my people and I—have been sold so that we can be wiped out, killed, and destroyed. If our men and women had only been sold as slaves, I would have kept silent because the enemy is not worth troubling you about, Your Majesty.”

Then King Xerxes interrupted Queen Esther and said, “Who is this person? Where is the person who has dared to do this?”

Esther answered, “Our vicious enemy is this wicked man Haman!” Then Haman became panic-stricken in the presence of the king and queen.

The king was furious as he got up from dinner and went into the palace garden. But Haman stayed to beg Queen Esther for his life, because he saw that the king had a terrible end in mind for him. When the king returned from the palace garden to the palace dining room, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was lying. The king thought, “Is he even going to rape the queen while I’m in the palace?” Then the king passed sentence on him, and servants covered Haman’s face.

Harbona, one of the eunuchs present with the king, said, “What a coincidence! The 75-foot pole Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke up for the well-being of the king, is still standing at Haman’s house.”

The king responded, “Hang him on it!” So servants hung Haman’s dead body on the very pole he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king got over his raging anger. (God’s Word Translation)

“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”

Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)

I sometimes half-jokingly say to people that it’s important for me to keep busy so that I stay out of trouble. The truth is, however, that I tend to find myself in trouble a lot – whether I’m busy, or not. The same could be said for the Jewish people.

If you are anything like me, you have experienced, on more than one occasion, of feeling like you are in a circumstance that’s like quicksand. It’s as if you are stuck with no way out. Queen Esther found herself in such a situation. Through no fault of her own, she was thrust upon the stage of being the intercessor between life and death, salvation and elimination. 

The wicked Haman, a high official to the king of Persia, had it out for the Jews. So, he orchestrated a devious plan to do away with them once and for all – even building a gallows on his own property in the anticipation of hanging one of them on it. That’s how much the guy hated Jews.

The King, Haman, and Esther, by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1660

But God, who is always awake and alert to whatever is happening in this world, had their backs. Even though the book of Esther does not once pronounce the name of God, the Lord’s influence and divine sovereignty are evident throughout the entirety of the story. 

God seems to specialize in hard cases, and in people who keep getting into trouble, despite their good intentions. And through providential means, the Lord inevitably gains the glory, and God’s people are wonderfully saved from circumstances well beyond their ability to save themselves.

Esther, a Jewish girl who became part of the king’s harem, and then the king’s wife and queen, humbly and prayerfully entered the king’s presence on behalf of her people, the Jews. Even though she was exalted to such a status, there was still the very real possibility that taking such an initiative would get Esther into deep trouble.

Yet, because of divine providence superintending the whole affair, the tables were turned, with the Jews being joyously delivered; and Haman literally finding himself at the end of his rope, on his own gallows. 

Prayer, sensitivity to God, and the humility to listen, undergirded Esther’s decision and courage to step out and act on behalf of her people. 

Especially when it comes to trouble, prayer is not optional equipment for the believer, but absolutely essential to facing each and every difficult situation. That’s because it is God, not us, nor any of our skill or ingenuity, that ultimately brings deliverance. 

Saving ourselves from impossible situations and dire circumstances is way above our pay grade; only God can bring true deliverance – the kind that genuinely changes people so that divine purposes are accomplished.

Our discouraging situations, hard cases, difficult people problems, and vexing trouble – whatever the situation – God has your back, and delights to answer our desperate pleas for help and deliverance. 

Like me, you may find yourself in trouble. But you can also find yourself with all the power of heaven behind you; and with an answer to your prayer that is beyond what you can even think or imagine.

Loving God, your Son Jesus Christ came that we might have life and have it abundantly. We humbly ask that you pour out your blessing upon our nation. Where there is illness, bring your healing touch; where there is fear, strengthen us with the knowledge of your presence; where there is uncertainty, build us up in faith; where there is dishonesty, lead us into truth; where there is discord, may we know the harmony of your love. This we are to bold to pray through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit are one God, now and forever. Amen.