Do not hide Your face from Your servant, for I am in trouble; hear me speedily. Draw near to my soul, and redeem it; ransom me because of my enemies. (Psalm 69:17-18)
In the previous devotion, we mentioned that there have been times in Israel’s history when they found themselves in exile and subjected to the rule of godless men. In some cases, the exile was the consequence of their choices made long before the exile. For instance, the Babylonian exile was the result of disobedience and a failure to listen to the warnings and calls to repentance delivered to them. While in Babylon Daniel prayed, “We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name” (Daniel 9:5-6).
Before Israel entered the land of Canaan they were told, “You will soon perish from the land; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands” (Deuteronomy 4:26-28). The message to them was essentially this: if you are going to give your heart to the nation’s gods, I am going to give you to the nations — but you won’t like it. In short, God often gives us what we want to teach us it was not what we needed.
This is why David prayed on behalf of his people, “Redeem my soul.” In other words, if our soul is captivated by the allure of the world, then our bodies will remain imprisoned by their philosophies and ideologies. In short, only a spiritual renewal will bring about our deliverance from this world and its grip. As our Redeemer, the Lord delivers us from the enemy of our soul when He sees that we desire to return to Him. In other words, when we begin to draw near to Him, He will begin to draw near to us and redeem us from the hand of the enemy. And thus it is written:
“But from there (the nations) you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in trouble … turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice for the Lord your God is a merciful God, He will not forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 4:29-31)
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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