The Certainty of Deliverance

The Certainty of Deliverance Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence Psalm 91 v 3 Yesterday, somebody whom I had asked to read Psalm 91 as his life insurance policy every day testified in a mail that thanks to his little act of faith, he was saved from grievous injury in a fall. The word “ surely” that this uni-verse starts off with gives us the assurance of certainty of deliverance. Satan is compared to a bird hunter or a “ fowler”. He is used to adopt foul means to deceive the birds. The birds literally fly into his snare or trap. We are lured by the temptations of this world so that our souls are trapped. When we receive Christ, our souls escape like birds out of a snaring net. By breaking the power of sin and death, Jesus broke the snare open. We have a Hobson’s choice in life, “ Receive or be deceived.” Jesus not only broke the snare of sin and death and doing away with the sting of the grave, He redeemed us from the invisible agents of death and disease. Wherever He went unlike other teachers, He did not just teach and leave sick people as they were. In His compassion, He healed the sick, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the paralysed and even raised some from the dead. You cannot have an encounter with Christ and remain what you were before He met you. Sometimes, we have only ourselves to be blamed that we get ensnared. We score self goals or sow the seeds of our own destruction. Our thoughts, words, desires,actions and reactions can ensnare us. The fowler or hunter knows our inner weaknesses. He reads us like a book and focusses on those areas of weakness. We need to appropriate grace or strength from the Lord to fight these weaknesses and win the inner battle. When we cover ourselves with the blood armour of Jesus, we protect ourselves from the deadly pestilence or diseases of the mind and body that are going around contaminating air, water and food. We need to do our part too to keep the sap flowing in us: sap standing for spiritual attitudes of progress like faith, wisdom, humility, contentment, spiritual shrewdness to recognize and defend ourselves from evil or risks, love, kindness and self control. Prateep V Philip