God who rescues
Psa
18:16-19
16 He reached down from on high and took hold
of me; he drew me out of deep waters. 17 He rescued me from my powerful
enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. 18 They confronted
me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. 19 He brought
me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted
in me.
In
a previous meditation we considered the God who delivers, and the
concept of the God who rescues is very similar, but worth considering
again. Indeed, the concept of rescue is far more familiar to us than
that of deliverance. People stuck down pot-holes need rescuing. People
stuck on mountain sides need rescuing. People in boats wrecked on
the rocks need rescuing. A company drifting towards insolvency needs
rescuing. A great man turning to drink needs rescuing. Someone who's
car has broken down miles from anywhere needs rescuing. Oh yes, we're
very familiar with the concept of ‘rescue'.
In
each case the person needs rescuing from something. For David in the
verses above, he saw himself in ‘deep waters'.
We speak of ‘being out of our depth' meaning being in a place where
our feet can't touch the bottom, where we're not able to be in control,
not secure and safe. Then he speaks about a ‘powerful
enemy'. The comment before the psalm talks of him writing it
after he has escaped Saul's army. He was confronted by those more
powerful than himself. It was a ‘day of disaster'
a day of potential destruction.
Do
not these three descriptions fit the needs of mankind and show the
reason Jesus came? First, out of our depth. Most
of the time people declare that they are ‘all right', they are in
control and feel they are masters of their destiny. Then, every now
and then something happens that makes them realize that they are not,
they are not in control, they are out of their depth in the situation.
It may be circumstances going bad, it may simply be an illness or
an infirmity. Aches and pains – back ache, tooth ache, arthritis or
sprains – have the ability to cripple and weaken a person. One minute
strong, the next minute vulnerable. Second, confronted by
an enemy. The world today has taken to speaking about a person's
‘demons'. What they mean by these are the things that we fear or the
‘nasty' things in humanity that we battle against and which make us
less than we could be. Finally, the potential of destruction.
When we are out of control and we are threatened by forces stronger
than us, our very lives are at risk. There is one who seeks to destroy
us. It is a very real threat. Spiritually, morally and even physically,
the threat is very real. So there we were – helpless – and then we
cried out.
We've
quoted it before but it fits most perfectly here, Paul's description
of what God has done: “he has rescued
us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom
of the Son he loves” (Col
1:13).
There it is in its simplicity: we were doomed in the dominion of the
devil, a prey to his suggestions and his activities, our very lives
threatened and then, when in our desperation we cried out, God reached
down and rescued us from the darkness of the pothole, from the cold
of the mountainside, from the threat of drowning, from going utterly
bankrupt, and from the loneliness of broken down isolation, and brought
us into a safe and secure and warm place where the Son rules over
our circumstances and provides everything we need. It's a marvelous
feat of transformation and we are rescued!