Delivered from Afflictions

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. ²⁰ He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken."

Psalm 34:19-20

It occurred to me recently that I have not given the miraculous preservation of the bones of Jesus on the cross just due:  how many times have bones been broken in innocuous or routine ways?  People have broken bones playing games like hide-and-seek and dodgeball!  Others have broken bones while working, accidentally kicking a table or falling down.  God allowed His only begotten Son Jesus to be cruelly tortured and crucified, yet all His bones were preserved.  He was beaten and battered beyond recognition, yet Jesus did not suffer a broken jaw, tooth, orbital bone or rib--because God's word cannot be broken.

John cited this Psalm after witnessing the death of Jesus on the cross and observed the breaking of the legs of the criminals crucified beside Him.  John 19:33-36 reads, "But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. ³⁴ But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. ³⁵ And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe. ³⁶ For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, "Not one of His bones shall be broken."  It is amazing the human hands have 27 bones in them and the human foot 26 bones, and though the hands of Jesus were pierced by nails not one of them was broken.  God sent His Son as a Saviour to be broken on the cross so all who believe in Him can be made whole.  He was afflicted and broken, yet all His bones were preserved.

This is very encouraging for believers given the context of Psalm 34, a song David penned after God delivered him from the Philistines.  David was afflicted when his father-in-law Saul tried to kill him and pursued him without a cause; he was troubled when he heard of the deaths of the priests at Nob.  He was greatly afraid when the Philistines recognised him as a great warrior of Israel as he went to see king Achish.  "This poor man cried out," David sung speaking of himself, "and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles."  David was afflicted but God delivered him out of all his trouble; Jesus was also afflicted, yet God preserved His bones.  We are greatly comforted to know when we are afflicted God will deliver us too, having been made righteous by grace through faith in Jesus.  Jesus was battered, bloodied and died, yet His intact bones are a testimony of God's faithfulness to keep His word and to deliver us out of every affliction.

When afflicted, let us cry out to the God who hears us as David did.  Then the beginning of Psalm 34:1-4 can be our anthem and testimony as those delivered by our awesome, gracious God:  "I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. ² My soul shall make its boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it and be glad. ³ Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. ⁴ I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."

When A Servant Reigns

I was reminded of a situation that occurred when I was running work as a foreman on board the U.S.S. Nimitz.  I gave an experienced apprentice a list of spaces with the required materials needed to finish covering hot copper-nickel pipes.  Several hours later, I was surprised to see them wandering around without tools or material.  It turned out they were going to all the spaces and determining what materials were needed!  They spent hours "formanizing" when they were supposed to be installing insulation.  Needless to say I learned by 10 wasted man-hours one does not give a list on a clipboard to an apprentice because he misinterprets it as a promotion from working on the tools--and nothing of value is accomplished.

There were people in the dockyards who were skilled at making work last, if you understand my meaning, and I would number those fellows among them.  I imagine those two imagined it might take them all day to find 10 spaces and determine what material was needed for the job, work that already had been done in half an hour by myself alone.  It would have been comical to listen in as the senior apprentice pontificated over the hard work and skill required to ascend to such heights that enabled his mastery to shine:  it was fitting his well-worn tool belt and mastic-encrusted tape measure was laid aside for a clipboard and pen, such was his genius.  Upon meeting these wanderers, I quickly took action to dash all facades of apprentice authority by placing them back on task.

Agur wrote in Proverbs 30:21-23:  "For three things the earth is perturbed, yes, for four it cannot bear up: ²² for a servant when he reigns, a fool when he is filled with food, ²³ a hateful woman when she is married, and a maidservant who succeeds her mistress."  Harmony within a workplace, society and family is promoted and sustained when people walk wisely in the fear of the LORD.  I can identify with those wayward apprentices, for I have misunderstood God's expectations and the proper execution of my role God has given me as His servant in being an older brother, husband, father and foreman.  There always remains the possibility we can use the scriptures God has given us to condemn others or exonerate ourselves of the same errors.  We know the truth and assume it falls to us to utilise it to save or change others when only God can do that.  Just as the apprentice overstepped the mark to do a job I already finished and was negligent to do his own job, I can make the mistake of trying to do God's work without surrendering to Him and others as His servant.  It is amazing God entrusts His priceless word and wisdom into our hands as guided by the Holy Spirit, willing for us to falter and fail on His watch so we might be humbled and grow through the experience.

How those apprentices would have appreciated grace I did not even think to extend to them!  I had benefited immensely from God's grace extended to me, yet the earth was troubled for the manner in which a servant of God dressed down a couple apprentices on that occasion for their oversight which seemed clear to me.  It is good for us to realise we have played the fool so we would not take up that role again; it is good to recognise our behaviour has been hateful, spiteful and we are incapable in ourselves to wield authority wisely.  We will always meddle, lord it over others, resort to threats, deflect, accuse, withdraw or fight.  Being born again and filled with the Holy Spirit is the first step on a journey to learn to humble ourselves before the LORD and walk in love towards all--even when others do not listen, are careless, indolent or proud.  Let not such behaviour not be named among God's people to whom He has given His word and Spirit, for we have learned this from Jesus.

The Humble Study

The Jews were chosen by God and given His Law that was to govern their lives.  It contained the proper order of the worship of God, the designs for the tabernacle, priestly vestments and furnishings, outlined blessings for those who kept the Law and the curses for breaking the Law.  The authoritative word of God given to Moses and the people gave them the ability to know and assert objective difference between what was right and wrong.  The 10 Commandments were important commands and prohibitions in the Law of Moses that numbered more than 600.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 8:1, "Now concerning things offered to idols: we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies."  The Law identified the fashioning, worship and possession of idols to be a sin punishable by death.  It was very easy for Jews to look upon Gentiles with contempt for being given over to idolatry in their ignorance of God and His law.  What the Law did not explain in full, however, was idolatry is not limited to graven images made by craftsmen for veneration, but could be established by the love of self or anything rather than God in the hearts of men.  Jews who did not have images of Zeus, Jupiter or Diana and condemned those who did were not necessarily free of idolatry themselves.  Knowledge of the Law puffed many up and were themselves condemned by hypocrisy.

In my younger days I have been guilty of the same error as a person familiar with the Bible from childhood.  By exposure to the truth of scripture I became aware when a person in the Bible said or did something wrong and I took pleasure in identifying it with self-righteous scorn.  I would have done well to heed Psalm 1:1-2 in my Bible reading:  "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; ² but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night."  God did not give the Law for people to be puffed up but to be humbled by the scope and gravity of their own sin so they might repent.  The LORD has graciously provided His word to learn from the lives of others so we would follow the example of Jesus to walk in love and forsake the pattern of sin common to all other men.

While there are benefits to look back briefly upon our past decisions so we might learn from our mistakes, it is not possible to go back and change what we did.  It does us no good to use our Bible knowledge to criticise the sins of others in the scripture as a fault-finding exercise as if we do not need to repent of our sin or grow in love today.  It is hypocrisy to mock or scorn people for decisions that exposed their lack of faith when we are no better than they--and likely worse given the full revelation of God's word we read.  We ought to use our knowledge to edify the Body of Christ, and it is not loving to jibe or sledge people of faith whose failures are recorded because we fail and fall woefully short.  There's nothing funny about making fun of people God commends for their faith.  If there is humour to be found in a puffed-up approach to Bible study, it might be to realise whenever we did so the joke was on us.

Dead to Sin, Alive to God

What we believe has a major impact on what we do and how we live.  If I truly believed valuable gold coins were being sold in a shop for a fraction of their value, I would purchase all the stock I could.  But if believed them to be lead adorned with gold spray paint, I would not consider buying a single one.  While the cruel dictator rules with oppression the people feign reverence in the presence of his person and images.  Yet when they believe the cruel dictator is dead and beyond power to torture and murder them, they celebrate without fear when statues are torn down and images desecrated.  As beliefs in our minds are lived out, so spiritual realities have a practical impact on our decisions daily.

Paul wrote in Romans 6:8-11:  "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Christians are those who believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died on the cross and rose from the dead, and by faith in Him we are born again.  Because Jesus is risen from the dead, death has no dominion over Him.  This is the reality we appropriate by faith in Jesus practically:  we reckon (consider, credit) ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God.  Sin and death no longer have dominion over us because we are in Christ.

There is a difference between something being "dead to me" and I reckoning myself "dead unto" it.  To say something is dead to me acknowledges existence of the thing but I am choosing to treat it as if it does not, I don't care about it or want anything to do with it.  This won't prevent us coming into contact with the thing we are pretending is dead to us and it exerting sway over our minds or bodies.  To reckon myself dead unto a thing is quite another.  Everything and everyone in the world can continue as it is by I am not impacted by it at all.  Nothing can have a hold on me because I am dead:  I cannot be tried in a court of law, forced to pay a fine, or serve time in prison.  Paul says we are to reckon or consider ourselves dead to sin, and because we are dead in Christ sin wields no authority or governance over our decisions.  Having been raised to new life by faith in Jesus, we are to reckon ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus our LORD.

Reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin and alive unto Christ is not a mind game we play with ourselves, but is the spiritual reality of our new identity in Jesus by faith.  Romans 6:13-14 continues:  "And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace."  Believing Jesus died and rose and again, we reckon ourselves to be dead to sin, alive to God and present ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness.  Sin does not have dominion over us, yet because we live in bodies corrupted by sinful thoughts and desires we can imagine the only hope for us walking righteously is in the eternal state.  Paul destroys this foolish misconception.  By God's grace through faith in our risen LORD Jesus we can present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead.  Since we believe Jesus died and rose from the dead, on that basis we consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God.  Having been made righteous by faith, by His grace we yield ourselves to walk righteously.