Today's Quick Word
Today’s Quick Word
Psalm 9:19-20 Arise, LORD, do not let mortals triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, LORD; let the nations know they are only mortal. King David […]
Psalm 9:19-20 Arise, LORD, do not let mortals triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, LORD; let the nations know they are only mortal.
King David gives an encouraging and timely reminder that our God, the God who has revealed himself clearly and undeniably in his infallible written Word and in his One-and-Only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, remains sovereign over all the world he has created, and therefore all peoples and all nations remain accountable to him even if they deny his existence and reject his laws.
As human beings, we are all made in his image and likeness, made to live for ever – immortal; but, because of our rebellion against our Creator, our sin, we have all become mortals, or people who die. Such a situation might remove us from our relationship with God, but it does not remove our innate accountability to him when we do die. We might find this hard to accept, but we can’t escape from the reality that it is what God has decreed.
God in his mercy has provided a way out of this condemning accountability by coming among us in the person of his Son and taking our place in death. The Author of Hebrews asks the big question for which the Bible has no answer: “For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” (Hebrews 2:2-3a).
David knows that it is only by God’s grace that we can be saved (see Psalm 130), and so he pleads with God that, by whatever means might be necessary, – even if it means ‘striking them with terror’ – he will let all nations know that they are not in the land of the living, but in the land of the dying (‘mortals’), in order that they might come to him for salvation.
Let us not be discouraged as we see godless forces and ideologies taking over our culture – just as they were in David’s day – but let us rather pray, as David did, that the worldview of humanism will not triumph, but that people and nations will take hold of God’s free offer of salvation-by-grace in Christ – that they will take the very first step in this direction by realising that they are mortals who need a Saviour!
– Bruce Christian
