Oh, Lord, Save Your People

A Cry for Help

Psalms 28:1-3 ESV

 

“To you, O Lord, I call;

    my rock, be not deaf to me,

lest, if you be silent to me,

    I become like those who go down to the pit.

Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy,

    when I cry to you for help,

when I lift up my hands

    toward your most holy sanctuary.

 

“Do not drag me off with the wicked,

    with the workers of evil,

who speak peace with their neighbors

    while evil is in their hearts.”

 

The Lord is giving me an interesting picture here. He is letting me see this person crying for help as a personification of the word of God. For, the word of God is under attack. It is being assaulted. It is being raped by the wicked whose goal it is to destroy or to deplete the pure milk of the word of God.

 

And many men who are supposed to be men of the gospel and heads of churches and of Christian households are standing by just watching it happen. They are mostly doing nothing to stop it from taking place, for they are busy with their movies, their games, their marketing schemes, their smart phones, or with entertaining themselves, or with their own agendas.

 

And so evil and wicked people in positions of authority throughout the world have been able to loot the Scriptures and to rob them of the purity of the word so that they can teach a different gospel which is of the flesh of man, for it appeases and appeals to human flesh.

 

Now, the word of God is still intact. At least in America we can still have Bibles in our homes and we can read the Scriptures in their fulness on the internet in many languages and in differing translations. But it is the presentation of the word of God coming from the mouths of preachers and evangelists and ministers of the gospel which is adulterating the pure word.

 

But the word is under attack from government officials, too, who want us to break down everything which divides us as a people and for us to build bridges of compromise with others who believe different from us. For their goal is to bring the whole world into unity with one another into a one world government and into a one world religion.

 

But it isn’t just the word which is under attack. Those of us who are still holding to the truths of Scripture as taught by Jesus and by his New Testament apostles are also under attack, and we are being accused of teaching “works-based salvation” and of being self-righteous, legalistic, unsympathetic, harsh, unloving, and unkind.

 

My Strength and My Shield

Psalms 28:6-9 ESV

 

“Blessed be the Lord!

    For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.

The Lord is my strength and my shield;

    in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;

my heart exults,

    and with my song I give thanks to him.

 

“The Lord is the strength of his people;

    he is the saving refuge of his anointed.

Oh, save your people and bless your heritage!

    Be their shepherd and carry them forever.”

 

Pleas for Mercy

 

So, we are crying out to the Lord for him to give us his strength, courage, and wisdom to keep speaking the truth against all attacks and against all opposition. For we need to know how to answer people who oppose us who are also opposing the pure unadulterated gospel of our salvation.

 

It is hard, too, because so many preachers who are respected among the people are teaching an adulterated gospel which is depleting the pure milk of the word in favor of a gospel which appeals to human flesh. But they mix their lies in with the truth, and they do this smoothly and cleverly so that many Christians don’t see the deception staring them right in the face.

 

And since they are so highly respected, Christians tend to just accept what they say without question and without checking out what they are teaching against the Scriptures in context. But some of these preachers are very skillful at deception and at the twisting of the Scriptures to make what they are teaching sound like truth when, in fact, what they are teaching are lies.

 

And please know here that the “pure milk of the word” is not a watered down gospel or a half-truth gospel. “Milk” is not synonymous with “diluted.” It is speaking of the purity of the Scriptures that we are to hunger for like a baby hungers for her mother’s breast milk. It is the necessary sustenance we need to live holy lives and to grow up into salvation (1 Pet 2:2).

 

So, this prayer here for God to save his people, in this scenario being presented here, is for their salvation spiritually, for them to be rescued from the lies and from the deceptions and to have their eyes opened to the truth so that they don’t fall into the devil’s trap and end up wandering away from their pure devotion to the Lord to follow after a diluted gospel.

 

For this diluted (adulterated) gospel is telling people that they can believe in Jesus and have their sins forgiven and be guaranteed a home in heaven when they die but that they don’t have to forsake their sins or walk in obedience to the Lord or submit to him as Lord. Some teach obedience as optional while others teach against it, calling it “works-based salvation.”

 

A Song of Salvation

 

So, then the Lord put a song in my head called “Do You Hear the People Sing?” It is from the play called “Les Misérables.” It is about a revolution, a fight against oppression and slavery and a fight for freedom. But the Lord was helping me to see this in a spiritual sense, that we need to join this spiritual army and fight against slavery to sin and for freedom from sin.

 

The picture he is giving me is of Christians singing that they will not be enslaved to sin again, and who are calling more people to stand with them and to be strong and join with them in the fight for the truth which will give the people the knowledge of how to be free from bondage to sin and how to walk in holiness and righteousness in the power of God.

 

We need to be part of this spiritual army singing at the top of our lungs the message of the pure word of God which teaches us about how we can be free from slavery (addiction) to sin and how we can live holy lives pleasing to God, and how we can now be slaves of righteousness in the power of God’s Holy Spirit now living within us who are free.

 

For our enemy and his many hordes are speaking loudly and strongly telling people that freedom means freedom from the guilt of sin while they continue living in sin, and that salvation means being forgiven our sins so we can go to heaven when we die but while we continue to live in slavery to sin. And that is not freedom! That is bondage, and it is a false hope of salvation.

 

So, we need to put our hope and trust solely in God and not in humans who lie to us. And we need to study the Scriptures in context and obey our Lord’s commands which are to us who believe in Jesus. And we need to walk in the freedom our Lord provided and preach the true gospel so that many more people will be saved from their slavery to sin.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Rom 12:1-2; Jas 1:22-25; 1 Pet 2:9; Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8]

 

YOU RAISE ME UP  

 

Brendan Graham / Rolf Lovland

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary
When troubles come and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oni0tO_HN30

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