“As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’.” (Romans 8:36).
Paul had just laid out a legal argument for our cause as God’s people (vv. 30-32). Then he negated the idea that we are still under some condemnation from God (vv. 33-34). Then Paul attempted to embrace an argument that nothing in the trials of this life can separate us from the love of Christ (v. 35).
Now Paul uses an Old Testament scripture to support what he is saying, that just seems totally out of character for what he is saying. We know Paul was a brilliant theologian and teacher, so we have to figure out what his purpose was in using Psalm 44:22 (quoted here), to make his point about God’s love in tough times.
The context of Psalm 44 is a plea for God to speedily come to Israel’s rescue in a time of great distress. David wrote this Psalm to say, all we’ve done is serve you and now the enemy is destroying us: “Arise for our help, and redeem us for Thy mercies’ sake” (Psalm 44:26). Its when we come to the point of crying out to God that these great promises of Romans 8 come to fruition.
As long as you rely on your faith, you’re on your own. When you rely on God and what His Son did on the cross, your answer is at the threshold.
Tags: deliverance, faith, slaughter
“…in hope. Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20b-21). The hope of a believer is that in spite of the earthly curse on the world around us, there is a deliverance that is coming for each of us. This is “our earnest expectation” (v. 19) and “hope” (v. 20).
Jesus didn’t deliver the world from the curse when He first came. But He did give a taste of deliverance to multitudes that received a healing, a miracle, or a deliverance in their lives. They still had to live on a cursed planet, but they knew what it was to see breakthroughs in the “bondage of corruption“. In the Acts and Epistles we see again, even after Jesus’ ascension, there were numerous recorded breakthroughs in people’s empty and vain lives. And in the 2012 Year of Harvest testimonies we received, we learned that God is still bringing bits and pieces of the “earnest expectation” that we will live in fully in heaven.
This “bondage of corruption” Paul describes is translated “bondage of decay” in the NIV. As the god of this world, Satan inspires the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says (an oversimplification) everything slowly wears out and deteriorates over time. That’s the “bondage of decay” in this world. Let’s become over-comers and taste of this “glorious liberty” that Paul is about to tell us about in the coming verses and how to achieve.
Tags: curse, deliverance, sin
When I was a new Christian, we sometimes did things I wouldn’t recommend today. For example, I was attending a youth group meeting in a country United Methodist church which was experiencing a revival during a move of the Holy Spirit in 1972. I was past my teen years but the pastor asked me to help with the youth.
At one youth prayer meeting in which I was absent, one young teen gal became very belligerent. The others, sensing a demonic manifestation, attempted to cast the spirit out of her. She went ballistic and ran out of the church and into the cornfield. An hour later she returned. Five or six guys grabbed her and carried her to a classroom where they forcibly held her down and prayed for her deliverance.
After some time she calmed down and was obviously changed. She was an active part of the youth group after that. I think its obvious that she was delivered from a demonic influence that night, although I would never recommend forcing the victim to submit. That was not scriptural and may have opened the church to a lawsuit. But the method did work!
How would you have handled that differently?
Tags: deliverance, demon
With both hands on the steering wheel, I saw the water begin to fall on the windshield. Being a summer day, I checked to make sure the windows were secure. The spray then increased as my car drove into the storm. The atmosphere grew dark and the roar of the tempest became deafening.
My car continued to move through the darkness as if under its own power. The tempest was so severe that I began to lose reception on my car radio. The blast of the squall made me uncomfortable as I sensed the car being rocked slightly from side to side.
Then, as abruptly as it began, the downpour ceased and a ferocious wind began to blow against my car. The cyclonic roar was louder than the deluge had been, but the darkness slowly passed and I emerged from that fearsome experience. Many storms in life are like that storm, but we must let Jesus take the wheel and guide us through.
I trusted God through it all and was soon driving out of the Car Wash.
Tags: deliverance, humor, storms
NEWS FLASH: Due to the abundance of rain we are moving the Family Fun Fest indoors tonight. Its still on and we have all kinds of food and fun activities for the kids. Bring your appetites. It all begins at 6PM. Don’t let us down.
As a teenager, I worked for a produce farmer near Newville. One of our jobs was to feed and bed down cattle in a couple of locations. Several times an electric fence would short out and a buddy and I had to walk the fence and find out where the break was. It was usually a fallen branch, but on one occasion we found a bull had tried to cross a fence to get to the females and had become tangled up in electric and barbed wire.
The barbed wire had enraged the bull, which only caused him to dig the barbs deeper into his legs. No one could could get near him to free him. So we just waited. The farmer arrived hours later and walked up to him with wire cutters. By then the bull was exhausted and broken. His fight was gone. Patience paid off.
Sometimes that may be a picture of us. Things don’t go as we want them, and the problems of life get worse and worse. The more we try to extract ourselves, the more it hurts. We won’t let God near. Finally, we are exhausted of the fight and give in to God, Who steps in to set us free. How can we be so stubborn?
Tags: anger, deliverance, snare, trials, trouble
The Bible recounts the story of the Gerasene demoniac, a man possessed by 1,000 demons that controlled the man in a downward destructive path. His life was a waste. But Jesus cast the demons out and the man’s life was changed…dramatically so (Mark 5:1-20).
But what does that have to do with you living in the 21th Century?
C. S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia, once wrote that he examined his own life and “found what appalled me: a zoo of lust, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was Legion.”
Only when we examine our lives and discover what we really are can we bow before Jesus and allow Him to cast out whatever may possess us”. Believe me, I’ve been there.
Tags: C. S. Lewis, deliverance, exorcism, Legion
A mother eagle builds a comfortable nest for her young, padding it with feathers from her own breast. But the God-given instinct that builds that secure nest also forces the eaglets out of it before long. Eagles are made to fly, and love will not fail to teach them. Only then will they become what they are meant to be.
So one day the mother eagle will disturb the twigs of the nest, making it an uncomfortable place to stay. Then she will pick up a perplexed eaglet, soar into the sky, and drop it. The little bird will begin to free-fall. Where is Mama now? She is not far away. Quickly she will swoop under and catch the fledgling on one strong wing. She will repeat this exercise until each eaglet is capable of flying on its own.
Perhaps this was what Moses had in mind when he penned, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27).
Tags: deliverance, eagle, parents