SONGS OF DELIVERANCE
R. F. White
Psalm 32: 7; 1 Timothy 1: 12–17; Romans 7: 24, 25; 8: 1, 2; Colossians 1: 12, 13
I have been thinking a little of this expression that occurs in Psalm 32, “thou dost encompass me with songs of deliverance”. I think a song would convey something of victory, of triumph and the idea of being encompassed means, I suppose, that in whatever direction we might look there is something that speaks of deliverance. I thought it might be illustrated in a way by what Paul says in the scriptures we have read. You will notice that the idea of giving thanks comes into each of them. A song would be an expression of thankfulness for help received. I desire to speak to the heart and soul of each one here. An address of this nature, as I understand it, is not like a teacher standing up to give a lecture, but it is rather that there might be something in the occasion that will link us freshly in our affections with divine Persons.
David in Psalm 32 had come through a great experience with God. He had received the forgiveness of his sins. I know that most of us here, through divine grace and mercy, have had the blessed experience of the forgiveness of our sins. It is a very real and wonderful matter that in divine grace God has moved towards us in the person of Christ, and those sins that were so grievous have been forgiven through the work of the Saviour. How precious it is that we have a link together, dear brethren, on that basis, that our sins have been forgiven for His name’s sake. And, as we have been taught, and, I trust, have experienced, the Holy Spirit has been given to us that we might enjoy the blessing of that forgiveness. And so the psalmist comes to this point in the psalm and finds that God is a hiding-place for him. The God from whom we would hide as sinners, as in the previous verses, that blessed God, known to us in grace as a Saviour God, has become a source of refuge. He says, “Thou art a hiding-place for me; thou preservest me from trouble; thou dost encompass me with songs of deliverance”. This is the language of a believer who has the Holy Spirit. How blessed it is to have a hiding-place! In this troubled world, and in the midst of all that comes into our lives, the knowledge of divine Persons has come to us in grace and we have a hiding-place.
Christ has become our Deliverer, our Saviour, and our refuge. We have known God as a Saviour God; we know the blessing of having a Father. We have a heavenly Father, who is interested in us and concerned about us and who loves us, and He has become a hiding-place for us. In all the troubles of life, the troubles of the testimony and all that comes into our experiences here below, how blessed to know God as a hiding-place and to be encompassed by songs of deliverance. I think the “songs of deliverance” mean that there has been experience with God that has resulted in some note of triumph in our souls. I trust that it is so. There are things in our lives as believers that are not easy. It may seem that the unbeliever has an easy life and a believer a difficult one in the path of faith. But I trust you know something of the blessing of having a song of deliverance in your heart, and some sense of being encompassed by the love of God, and the love of Christ; that brings a sense of joy, practically, into your being.
I read about Paul and what an example he is for us! He sets out the truth in a way, perhaps, that no one else could. Think of what entered into the conversion of this great apostle! We have read about it in 1 Timothy, where he speaks of what he was and then what he became. Perhaps there was never such a change as that which was effectuated in the life of this man. He said, “he has counted me faithful, appointing to ministry him who before was a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing
man”. I do not know if any of us here have been blasphemers, or persecutors, or insolent overbearing persons, but Paul was that. And what is more, he put it into effect, it was not just what was in his mind, but there was what he did. He says, “I indeed myself thought that I ought to do much against the name of Jesus the Nazaraean. Which also I did ... “, Acts 26: 9. There was nothing much in Paul’s life between the thought and the action. And yet there was an intervention in his life in mercy, and he says that Christ Jesus gave him power and counted him faithful and appointed him to ministry. How blessed to think of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ expressed towards Paul! I think, by extension, of the grace of that blessed One that has been extended towards me and towards each one of us here. But Paul sets the matter out in its fulness. He says he was a persecutor and an insolent and overbearing man but mercy was shown him because he did it ignorantly and in unbelief. The Lord Jesus, in His grace, took account of Paul’s conduct as a sin of ignorance and extended mercy to him.
What I particularly want to draw attention to, in reading this passage, is the point at which the Lord Jesus intervened in Paul’s life. Where we finished reading he speaks of God as the King of the ages. That means, I take it, that every aspect of time is under divine control. Time is a divine creation and God as King of the ages has every moment of time under His control. I sometimes wonder why it was, that being so, that Paul was allowed to go on in his life and do what he did against the saints, when the Lord knew that he was an elect vessel, one who was set apart from his mother’s womb. And yet in the ways of God he was allowed to go on and be a persecutor of the saints, before the Lord intervened in his life. We may wonder why it is that things happened as they did in the history of the testimony, or in our individual histories. Why was it that certain wrong things went on until there was a divine intervention to bring about deliverance? I suppose many of us who are a bit older wonder, as to those things that went on, why it was that we did not react sooner or see things sooner, or do things that we should have done earlier, and so on. And that may be a burden on our minds.
But Paul was conscious that he had received mercy and that God was over the timing of it. I think it is a wonderful thing to lay hold of that. He says that “But for this reason mercy was shewn me, that in me, the first, Jesus Christ might display the whole long-suffering, for a delineation of those about to believe on him”. We can give thanks for the long-suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. How precious to think of it in our own lives and in our own histories. There was, in the life of Paul, a full display of the Lord’s long-suffering, but that same longsuffering has met us. And so Paul can give thanks. What a song of deliverance this is! If you look back over our history collectively, what can you say, but that mercy has been shown to us? When there was nothing on our part to commend us and we were verily guilty, as Paul was, divine mercy intervened. It was because of the grace of our Lord and the glory is His.
And so he says, “Now to the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God, honour and glory to the ages of ages”. You look back over things and you see that God was over the timing of it all. It is not of our doing that things happen when they do. God is in it. The Lord Jesus is in it. But it is a blessed thing to be able to raise a song of deliverance and to give thanks in the acceptance of the way that things have come about through divine timing. Paul had to accept the fact that he was allowed to do what he did. It has been said, I am sure correctly, that what he did remained in his memory but not on his conscience. The matter had been met. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, he says, “of whom I am the first”. The matter had been met righteously and fully at such a cost to that blessed One. So we can say in our own lives and in our own histories, the timing of things has been in His hands. He came into the world to save sinners and we can put our names in there alongside of Paul and say He came into the world to save me. The timing of it was in His hands, and the mercy and grace was His. And the glory is God’s and will be eternally “to the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God, honour and glory to the ages of ages”. What a song of deliverance this is! As we look back over the years that have passed we can raise this song of thanksgiving to God, the King of the ages, who in Christ has intervened in our lives and in the history of the testimony to bring us through to where we are at the present time. The faithfulness of God is able to sustain us as we are maintained in dependence and in thankfulness. “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord”. To be preserved in thankfulness is a great thing in our lives.
We get thankfulness referred to also in Romans 7, where we read. I think that only Paul could have written such a chapter as this, bringing out his own experience of the struggle he went through in his own soul. We have to understand that this is something that we have to face up to. All of us have inward exercises, inward struggles. We have been taught, of course, that Paul went through these struggles as a man under law, when he was in the flesh. He was seeking to do what was right under law but finding in himself something different completely. I think that no Jew could write what Paul has written without the light that he comes to in the end where we read. He says, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. A Deliverer has come onto view. The Jew under law could not say that. And Paul comes to that point when he says, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” Then it is that the light, as it were, breaks in that there is another Man. We cannot avoid these exercises and they are not easy exercises. There is the desire to do what is right and the flesh within us is warring against it. But Romans 7 is given to us by Paul for our instruction and he opens up, in a way that none other does, what he went through in the secret of his own being.
Now we have been given the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit, I think, is with us as believers as we go through these exercises. The man under law had not got the Spirit, but now we have been given the Holy Spirit. So this chapter in Romans 7 is wonderful instruction for us so that we might get deliverance from the operations of the flesh which is within each one of us. But it is good to remember that, even before we take up these difficult exercises, the Lord Jesus Christ has become precious to us. Through Him we have peace towards God and we know in Him the value of redemption. He has become precious to us as our Redeemer. And we take up these exercises as those who know Him. So what is going to triumph in our lives? is it going to be the flesh, the desires and lusts of the flesh, or are we going to set ourselves in relation to the things of Christ?
Paul goes through these exercises and then he comes to this point where he says, “who shall deliver me out of this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. How blessed it is that there is another Man—a Deliverer! The Lord Jesus Christ personally never had these exercises. I believe I am right in saying that. These exercises are ours, because our flesh is sinful flesh. His was never such—He was without sin. He was tempted by Satan but I do not believe He ever had struggles with sinful flesh. He never could have, because it was said of Him, “the holy thing also which shall be born”, Luke 1: 35. But in us the flesh is there and we have to identify it and its operations and its workings, but how blessed it is if we can come to the point where we can say, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. There is a Deliverer, One who is there to help us, to bring us into liberty. So he says, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. These inward exercises involve some necessary introspection. But then when you come to the point where you thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ there is the ability to look outwards and see that outside of ourselves God has accepted us in another Man and “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. We have been accepted in another Man and there is no condemnation towards us.
Paul goes on to say, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. He sets himself there as an example for us that we might take up this song of deliverance, that the flesh might not have dominion over us. He says, “I myself with the mind serve God’s law; but with the flesh sin’s law”. The believer now is committed in his mind to God’s law. It has been said, I think helpfully, that your spirit is yourself. Your mind is a faculty. The mind helps the spirit, but the spirit is yourself. You come to it that you are committed to serve God’s law so that divine principles become paramount in your life. What a thing it is to come to that and to realise then that there is no condemnation! God is not condemning us—He is not looking on us as in the flesh. He has taken us up in another Man and He has blessed us in Christ. So this deliverance, this song of deliverance, is something that is to be maintained. We cannot let up on this because the flesh always will be with us, but then the Holy Spirit is always with us. The Holy Spirit is with us that we might be maintained in deliverance from the domination of the flesh so that we might be preserved in liberty and “in newness of Spirit” as referred to in Romans 7: 6. It is intended to be a pathway of happiness in the will of God, serving the law of God. How precious it is if we have come to something of that through these exercises so that we can sing, with Paul, this song of deliverance!
Then in Colossians there is what is collective, something that we can enter into together. Paul says, “giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light”. Now we come to something very blessed, an operation by the Father Himself. Fitness here has been explained as capacity. It is not exactly fitness in the sense of being cleansed from our sins. As to our sins, it goes on to say that, “in whom” (that is, in the Son of His love) “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”. As another has said, redemption in Colossians stands related to the value of Christ to the Father. In Ephesians, redemption is through His blood. It is the infinite value of the blood to God. But in Colossians we have redemption in “the Son of his love”. So the question of our sins is cleared. But fitness here is capacity to enjoy the love of God. That is, we have been brought into the enjoyment of something that is infinitely blessed. The Father has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light. The portion of the saints in light is the enjoyment of all that has been secured, as I understand it, through the operations of divine grace so that all that is in the heart of God has been manifested.
We may not be conscious of the fact, but the Father has had to do with us as believers. John’s gospel tells us that the Father drew us to Christ. We sometimes think we came of our own volition but behind that the Father was operating to draw us to Christ. And now he says, “the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light, who has delivered us from the authority of darkness”. There has been this great divine operation to deliver us from one power, the authority of darkness. The Lord Jesus came into this world as light. It says in John, “the light appears in darkness”, John 1: 5. There was darkness here, moral darkness, the darkness of the absence of the knowledge of the love of God and the light of God. The Lord Jesus came into the world as light. How precious it was that light came in where there was darkness. The darkness apprehended it not, but there it was. He came into the world as light and the light was shed on all men. But then the Father has operated to bring us into the blessed light of Christ, the light of His beloved Son. How precious a portion that is! “Giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light”. How precious it is that we have something we share together in the enjoyment of the portion of the saints in light. The Father has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
Everything for the Father’s pleasure is centred in that blessed One, the Accomplisher of His will, the One who is in His presence now. There is darkness all around us, you know. How persuasive, how penetrating it is—it may penetrate your soul. In Luke’s gospel there is an example of the power of darkness. You remember when they took the Lord Jesus in the garden and led him away that the Lord said, “this is your hour and the power of darkness”, Luke 22: 53. They took the One who is the object of the Father’s love, had no regard for Him nor respect for Him. They hung him on that cross. God did not intervene. It was a demonstration of the authority of darkness, the power of darkness in this world. How blessed to be in a company where we have been made fit through divine grace to appreciate and share in the portion of the saints in light!
May we be increasingly encouraged to give thanks for that wonderful, blessed privilege. And only the Father could have done it according to this scripture. He has given us to share the portion of the saints in light. He would give us something of the enjoyment of His appreciation of Christ and also the blessed knowledge of the truth of the assembly as that which is for the comfort of Christ, to respond to His love and to know Him. May we be helped to be preserved in thanksgiving as having part in this song of deliverance that we have been given to share something of the blessing of the portion of the saints in light!
Address at Kirkcaldy
18 June 2011