DAVID KNEW HIS ENEMIES weren’t gnashing their teeth at him by accident; they were attacking him because of his God-given righteousness. ‘The wicked bend their bows,’ he noted; ‘they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart’ (Ps 11:2; see also Ps 31:18; 35:20-21; 37:12,32). What David couldn’t have known is that behind all his enemies was the one evil overlord—a dazzling but malevolent spirit referred to in Scripture as ‘the devil,’ or ‘Satan’ (a name that means ‘adversary’). Satan is the adversary of all who choose to believe in God: he is a murderer and a liar—indeed, the ‘father of lies’ (John 8:44)—who ‘prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour’ (1 Pet 5:8). All the enemies of God’s people are in the service of this one evil antagonist. He and they have the same objective: to bring down the righteous so as to malign the name of God and destroy His kingdom.

If you and I seek that kingdom as a matter of priority—if we love God and neighbour and hold fast to our testimony about Jesus—then we, like David, can expect at some point to be hunted (Rev 12:10,17; see also Matt 5:11-12; 24:9; Mark 10:29-30; Luke 21:12-13; John 15:20). Sometimes, Satan will attack us through human agents: people who love the darkness and hate the light. When they see our light shining, they will try very hard to snuff it out so that it cannot expose their evil deeds (John 3:20). At other times, Satan will attack us directly by tempting us in our areas of personal weakness (1 Cor 7:5). If he can incite us to do wrong or distract us from doing right, he will have a basis for accusing us before God. Either way, his goal is to prove you and me guilty of sin, so cutting us off from our Life Source and rendering us ineffective (John 15:5). Satan is our great nemesis, the enemy from which we most desperately need God to rescue and protect us.

But our salvation from Satan’s grasp is no simple matter: there is something amiss with our humanity that makes us open to his evil promptings. In biblical language, our ‘flesh’ (Rom 7:5; 8:6-8; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 2:3; 2 Pet 2:10,18-19; 1 John 2:16; Jude 23; see also Rom 8:13; 13:14; Gal 5:16-17,24; 6:8; Col 2:13)—consisting of not just our body but also our soul—is corrupted. Our inner being is the asylum of selfish desires, conceited attitudes, self-righteous opinions and murderous sentiments; our mouths can be fountains of deceit, spite and vulgarity; our hands and feet pursue our own interests at the expense of our neighbour—and all with presumed impunity. In our natural selves, we are sinners. Sin lives in us, and sin comes out of us—out of each of us. The result is a universal culture of sin that the Bible calls ‘the world’ (John 1:10,29; 7:7; 14:17; 15:18-19; Jas 1:27; 4:4; 2 Pet 1:4; 2:20; 1 John 2:15-17; see also Matt 18:7; John 16:8,33; 17:14,16,25; Rom 5:12-13; 1 Cor 1:20-21; 2:12; 7:31; 2 Cor 5:19; 10:3-4; 11:18; Gal 4:3; 6:14; Col 2:20; Heb 11:7; 1 John 3:1,13; 4:1,3-5; 5:4-5; 2 John 1:7). It encompasses the whole of creation, pervading even the atmosphere we breathe. We inhale the putrid air of the world deeply into our lungs, then breathe it out for others to breathe in. Satan—‘the ruler of the kingdom of the air’ (Eph 2:2)—doesn’t have to work very hard to have his way with us. Whenever we allow him or his worldly empire to dig their spurs into our side, the sin that was crouching at our door jumps up and has us for lunch (Gen 4:7).

Do you and I require the life-giving action of a mighty Saviour in our lives? Do we need to be saved and safeguarded from the sins of our flesh, from the ungodly influence of the world, and from the evil schemes of the devil and his cohorts?

DO WE EVER!

SON OF DAVID

God’s persistent saving of the Israelites from their enemies in times of old was, we now know, just a hint of the salvation—indeed, the Saviour—that He intended for all humanity. David, who in good time was inaugurated as King of Israel, showed us something of who that Saviour would be: the Ruler of an eternal kingdom (2 Sam 7:12-13). A thousand years after David, that very Saviour was born. His name was Jesus. He was born a king and was soon being worshipped as such, for not only was He a son of David, He was the Son of God.

When God saved the ancient Israelites from cruel Egyptian slavery, He was giving them a sneak-peak at what He would do for the whole human race. Just prior to setting them free, He told them to slaughter an unblemished lamb as a sacrifice for their sins and daub its blood on the doorframes of their houses. Then He, the righteous Judge, went through the land, killing every firstborn Egyptian male on account of his sins, but passing over every household protected by the lamb’s blood (Ex 12:1-13). Soon, the Israelites were marching out of the idolatrous land where they had been enslaved for four hundred years. No more hard labour under the slavedriver’s whip. They had been saved!

The lamb of the Passover was an advance picture of David’s most famous descendant—the ultimate godsend, Jesus Christ. At the command of God His Father, Jesus came willingly to earth and paved the way for all of us to be saved from our enslavement to sin. First He taught us about God’s kingdom and lived a sinless life; then He went to the cross as an unblemished sacrificial offering for the world’s transgressions—‘our Passover lamb’ (1 Cor 5:7). He took God’s righteous judgement for our sins upon Himself so that it would ‘pass over’ us. When He committed His spirit into the hands of His Father (Luke 23:46), He paid the whole penalty for our salvation, leaving nothing for us to pay (John 19:30). He had killed off our corrupted flesh (Rom 6:6; Col 2:20; see also Rom 6:3-4; 2 Cor 5:14; Gal 2:20; Col 3:3; 2 Tim 2:11), overcome the world (John 16:33; 1 John 5:4-5), condemned our chief enemy, Satan (John 16:11; see also Ezek 28:18-19; Rev 19:20; 20:2-3,10), and reconciled all believers across nations and ages back to God (Rom 5:10-11; 2 Cor 5:18-19; Eph 2:16,18; Col 1:20-22).

Not a bad day’s work, wouldn’t you say?

But Jesus’ work wasn’t finished yet. Two days later, He rose from the grave (Matt 28:1-7; Mark 16:1-7; Luke 24:1-7) to embrace everlasting life; and around forty days after that, He ascended into the sanctuary of heaven (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 1:2,9). In both of these events, He represented you and me to God. His resurrection to eternal life was a guarantee of our future resurrection to eternal life (Luke 20:35-38; John 5:28-29; 6:39-40,44,54; 11:25; Acts 26:23; Rom 6:5; 8:29; 1 Cor 15:12-23,29; Eph 2:6), and His entry into heaven was a sign that all who believe in Him are with Him now in the intimate and holy presence of the Father (see Eph 2:6; Heb 4:4). On an appointed day, Jesus will come back in glory (Dan 7:13; Matt 24:30; 26:64; 1 Thess 4:17; Rev 1:7; 3:11; 22:7,12,20) to a renewed earth (Is 65:17; 66:22; Matt 19:28; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1-5), where He will inaugurate His heavenly kingdom and live among us forever. ‘Come,’ He will say to us, ‘you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world’ (Matt 25:34).

PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING

Jesus’ Hebrew name, yēshūa‘, means ‘the LORD is salvation.’ It is a name that He has lived up to: He has shown us that God Himself is our salvation. Before Jesus came to be with us, we were immersed in sin and selfishness and fated for death—‘without hope and without God in the world’ (Eph 2:12). But then God came down from heaven and saved us, not only from our sins but also from those who persecute us because of the righteousness that He gives us. If we trust in Jesus as our Saviour from everything unholy, God’s loving presence will always be our safe Refuge.

David didn’t know God’s salvation as we do, but he knew it well enough to pen words that we can pray as our own:

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not count against them (Ps 32:1-2)… I will exalt You, LORD, for You lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. LORD my God, I called to You for help, and You healed me. You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead; You spared me from going down to the pit (Ps 30:1-3)… Praise be to the LORD, for He has heard my cry for mercy. The LORD is my Strength and my Shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise Him (Ps 28:6-7)… I am under vows to You, my God; I will present my thank offerings to You. For You have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life (Ps 56:12-13).

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED

Jesus’ saving work on the cross is fully accomplished. The death He died, He died ‘once for all’ (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27; 9:12,26; 10:2,10), and the life He now lives as our representative in heaven is not subject to death. If we rely on Jesus Christ as our Saviour from sin, the benefits of His atoning death are ours today, and we are destined to share eternally in His never-ending life. He has absorbed God’s judgement for our sins (past, present, future) as if they were His sins, so rescuing us from destruction. Our guilt has been paid for, our shame has been borne unto death, and our estrangement from God has been healed. In their place is Jesus Himself, our eternal Saviour—the One who died and rose again to bring us back to God. Satan and his cronies have nothing to pin on us, even though we sin. If we keep hold of our faith in Jesus, our salvation is guaranteed (Joel 2:32; Mark 16:16; John 5:24; 10:9; Acts 2:21; 16:31; Rom 10:9,13).