Week 2 April 2025, Devotion Part 2

It helps if we will switch attention from our fill of woes to David’s curious, self-professed absence of wickedness. Is he a madman who gives God permission to ambush him in bed at night when all his defenses are down?  It gets crazier still as an astonishing thought hits us: he is actually plotting an offense! Consider the shots fired as David opens his prayer, “Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit! From thee let my vindication come! Let thy eyes see the right!”

If our wickedness is crucified with Christ, it has no business haunting our sleep with fears of doom. If Satan takes aim, we take cover under Christ’s shed blood. Martin Luther assessed his woes in that light and launched an offensive. Notice the salvoes fired from the lines of his Reformation hymn:” And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.” That “little word” spoken in the night of the soul is not poor or bad little me! We choose instead to say with David: “Wondrously show thy steadfast love!”  When peace, not peril, invites our retreat into the shelter of the Mighty Fortress of Luther’s God, it makes for infectious worship.  Part 2 of 2

Comment:  Perhaps the sceptic in you and me has to chew on the tough concept that unexpected conflict may be the very path to unprecedented confidence. Chemistry is the study of matter and energy, including how substances change and interact. Prior to its becoming a legitimate science, alchemists tried to transform base metals into precious ones. The Holy Spirit’s alchemy had Job testify, “But he knows where I am going.  And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.”  Trials and temptations are the lot of every Christ-follower, because our overarching reality is Redemption, not exemption.  God’s Word invites us to confess sin, not merely to admit our failures.  Judas is the classic example of one unwilling to repent, choosing to wallow in regret and remorse that drove him to suicide.  This goes well beyond a brief allusion to Holy Week.  In Hebrew, Satan’s name means “Accuser,” and in Rev. 12:10 is the full disclosure we are privileged to own personally this very day, “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah.  For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.’”  David’s destiny was not aborted by his sins as confessed in Psalm 51, and ours is secure in like manner.  Night time visits with the Lord can become “times of refreshment with the Lord,” as Peter suggests in Acts 3:19.  Upon lying down in bed, we might even betray our bold confidence in Christ’s finished work by praying in the words of Psalm 17:13, “Arise, O Lord!”  - and trusting Him fully to silence the accuser’s lying tongue.  Psalm 17