PSALM 70 – To the choirmaster. Of David, for the memorial offering. Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life! Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt! Let them turn back because of their shame who say, “Aha, Aha!” May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!” But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!”
THEME OF THE DAY: GOD’S DELAYS ARE NOT GOD’S DENIALS. We know the experience David had in today’s scripture. Who has not found themselves in overwhelming circumstances, seasons of spiritual and emotional oppression, intense trials that seem to only worsen, and we find ourselves pleading with God to come to our rescue, and to do so quickly? Feel David’s agonizing impatience as he cries out to his God, “Make haste, O God to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! O Lord, do not delay!”
This experience of God seeming to be silent to our pleas, detached from us, and offering no help are challenging to say the least. And if we are not careful, we will listen to the lies of the devil during such painful times. As God delays coming to help us, the devil will take the opportunity to do what he did with Eve in the Garden of Eden, and what he did to the disciples in the midst of the storm.
First, the devil’s tactics against Eve. When God delays, we may be tempted to doubt His Word which tells us throughout that He is our rock, fortress, refuge, stronghold, and those even when He delays answering our prayers. He doesn’t change and yet, this is exactly what the devil did to Eve; got her to doubt God’s Word – Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). We must fight hard to not let our emotions of God’s delay become the venue the devil plants the seed of doubt in us. We live by faith in God’s promises, not feelings of His presence.
Another tactic of the devil attacking us when God delays coming to our aid is seen in the disciples when things looked grim the night of a bad storm – On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:35-40). What did they do? They questioned the loving heart of the Lord. They said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Think about what they said. It was blasphemy. They said the God who is love didn’t care for them. And when God delays answering our prayers for help, the devil wants us to question God’s love. Fight him off like David does in today’s scripture. Go back and read it. He relies on God’s character of love; a love manifested in His deliverance of His people at His timing. And that makes us remember, God’s delays and not God’s denials.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to learn that Your delays in answering my prayers are not Your denials.”
QUOTE: “When God calls us to wait on Him, we learn the discipline of pleading and dependent prayer.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim