Psalm 59

What can explain the evil that insists on entrapping another person with the purpose of killing him? Yet the first two brothers that were born, Cain and Abel, instruct us, one with his life and another with his death, that this deep evil is possible.

After sin entered the world through Adam, there have been many dangerous enemies among men, and we have needed men to protect us. But this story of enemies and protection goes beyond the history of mankind, and required a solution more mysterious than hiring a well-armed night watchman.

Someone existed before the first man was created who was ready to sow weeds in God's garden. Jesus calls him an enemy. He came to steal and to kill and to destroy. We need help from the One who defeated this ancient enemy through His own death. God disarmed the fallen angelic rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in His Son. All human allies of these enemies and their larger human associations of corrupt and oppressive governments have been put on notice through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that a new order of powerful righteousness is coming and is even already among us.

God's people have anticipated that ultimate victory from heaven for many centuries. They cried out to Him when the powers of darkness swirled all about them. At times He intervened through a protector who provided a way out in this life. At other times he rescued His children by bringing them out of this life into His arms of eternal safety, even through the agency of murderous men and angels.

The great salvation that Jesus won for us, that victory that secured our presence in a world without evil, did not come by the avoidance of death, but by the willingness of God to enter into this creation and to save many through one death.

What was it like for Christ to suffer for us. The psalms give us a glimpse of what He was up against. Those who suffer at the hands of evil and injustice taste some of His experience personally.

Fierce men stood against Him. They stirred up trouble against Him. They come out at night like a pack of wild dogs. They imagined that no one could stop them in their hatred and lies. But there is a God who hears.

Who is this God? He is the God of creation who made all things out of nothing. He is the God of salvation, who came to save by becoming God with us in Bethlehem. He is the Son of God who died on a cross, and the Spirit of God who was poured out on the young church at Pentecost.

He, by His power, created worlds, and brought new life to stony hearts. He is the God of heavenly hosts and the Lord of His chosen nation, Israel. He laughs at nations that imagine themselves more real and powerful than the only I-AM. He rules over His people to the ends of the earth.

He has strength enough to keep His servants and to destroy their adversaries forever. He has steadfast love for us which shall never be taken away. He is our refuge in the day of our distress.

Whether we commit our souls to Him today with our final breath, or whether He pushes our adversaries away from us that we might continue to serve Him here below for another day we cannot say. He is God, and the length of His servants' lives is in His hands. We know that it is far better to go to be with Him, but often we are persuaded that He has more for us to do before He calls us home.

In our distress He may seem to be sleeping, but He does not sleep. We cry out to Him asking Him to wake up because we do not know what to say, and we need a Savior to act right now if we are to stand for Him on the earth in the morning. Therefore His holy ones have always cried out to Him, and He hears their cries.

He heard the cries of Jesus. Through His death, not only have evil men and angels been defeated, but the people of God have been saved. His resurrection is our assurance that our Lord will be our Help forever in the land of the living.