Psalm 35. I want to read through
this Psalm with you. We're going to read through it
and then we're going to make some observations. Plead my cause,
O Lord, with them that strive with me. Fight against them that
fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler
and stand up for my help. Draw out also the spear and stop
the way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy
salvation. What a blessed, that is probably
one of my favorite texts of scripture in all of the Bible. Say to my
soul, I am thy salvation. The Lord is not only our savior,
but he is our salvation. It's not about a salvation, it's
about him, our salvation. What a blessed text of scripture. Thank God for that. Say to my
soul, I am thy salvation. And then in verse four he says,
let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and brought
to confusion that devise my hurt. Let them be as chaff before the
wind and let the angel of the Lord chase them. Let their way
be dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord persecute
them. For without cause have they hid
from me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged
for my soul. Let destruction come upon him
at unawares, and let his net that he hath hid catch himself
into that very destruction, let him fall. That reminds me of
Haman, doesn't it? Or Judas. The very thing they
devised to be the downfall of the Lord's people became their
downfall. And my soul shall be joyful in
the Lord. It shall rejoice in his salvation. All my bones shall say, Lord,
who is like unto thee? Which delivers the poor from
him that is too strong for him. Yea, the poor and the needy from
him that spoileth him. See how the psalmist here is
identifying himself and others as the poor and the needy that
are weak before their enemies and their enemies spoil them,
they take from them all that they have and the Lord is the
one who delivers them. Verse 11, false witnesses did
rise up They laid to my charge things that I knew not. They
rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. But
as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I
humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned into my
own bosom. I behaved myself as though he
had been my friend or brother. I bowed down heavily as one that
mourneth for his mother. But in my adversity, they rejoiced
and gathered themselves together, yea, the abjects gathered themselves
together against me and I knew it not. They did tear me and
I ceased not and they ceased not. With hypocritical mockers
in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth. Lord, how
long wilt thou look on? Rescue my soul from their destructions,
my darling from the lions. I will give thee thanks in the
great congregation. I will praise thee among much
people. Let not them that are mine enemies
wrongfully rejoice over me. Neither let them wink with the
eye that hate me without a cause. For they speak not peace, but
they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in
the land. Yea, they opened their mouth
wide against me and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it. This thou has seen, O Lord, keep
not silence. O Lord, be not far from me. Stir
up thyself and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and
my Lord. Judge me, O Lord my God, according
to thy righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts,
ah, so would we have it. Let them not say, we have swallowed
him up, Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together
that rejoice at my hurt. Let them be clothed with shame
and dishonor that magnify themselves against me. But let them shout
for joy and be glad that favor my righteous cause. Yea, let
them say continually, let the Lord be magnified, which hath
pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. And my tongue shall
speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long. You probably noticed I inserted
the word but in verse 11, verse 27, where it says, let them shout
for joy, because it's really in contrast to what he said before,
that those be put in dishonor and shame that seek his hurt
and desire it. Okay, so this psalm is really
talking about a man who has suffered extreme injustice, hatred without
cause, suffering at the hands of cruel men, And who could this
be describing here? Well, in the historical context,
David suffered injustice. Saul sought to kill him. David
had done nothing against Saul. In fact, David had killed the
Lord's enemies and saved Israel from Goliath and from the Philistines. He was faithful to Saul. Saul
loved him, but he envied him because he knew that one day
God would make David king. And so he persecuted him, trying
to kill him his whole life. And it wasn't until finally Saul
was killed in battle that David was free from that persecution. And so we see that in the history
of David's life, these circumstances could be seen in some way. But
really, we wouldn't be able to fit all these things in about
David. And how much comfort could it
give us except that he would be an example? But the Lord Jesus
Christ is David's son, the one that scripture speaks about and
calls David, and after David had died, referring to him. This
is who David was talking about. His experiences were just God's
way of working in his life. in the same principles that would
be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ and recorded in such a
way that it would match what Jesus experienced in his sufferings
and in his death. In summary then, we know that
this psalm, once again, is the psalm of the Lord Jesus Christ
spoken in prayer to God as he suffered under the wrath of God
and all the sufferings that he experienced because of our sins. So that's the first observation.
You want to see that here. Now he says this, they rewarded
me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. This is exactly what
they did. Remember they cast lots for his
garments? That's the spoiling of his garments, but it was his
soul he was most in grief about because of the sorrows of his
soul. So throughout this psalm, you can see this. For example,
in verse 16, with hypocritical mockers in feast, they gnashed
upon me with their teeth. The entire time of Jesus's ministry
on earth, he was hounded by Pharisees and scribes and the Sanhedrin
and the Sadducees, men who were supposedly leaders in that Jewish
religion, and yet they themselves dishonored the law that they
claimed to trust and teach. And they dishonored God who gave
them the law because they didn't teach the people about God's
love and mercy and justice and faith. They didn't teach them
about those things. They didn't know about those things. And
they were hypocrites and all that they did, all that they
said, they didn't do what they tried to tell others they needed
to do. They judged others and they excused
themselves. So they were the epitome of hypocrites. And we can see ourselves in them,
but these are those who are spoken of here as hypocritical mockers
in feasts. They mocked God, they mocked
the truth, they mocked the Lord Jesus Christ in their feasts. So that's the first thing we
see here is that this psalm is about the Lord Jesus Christ in
his sufferings. Now, given that, given that it
is about him, there are several questions we have to ask and
answer. First of all, why would God,
who is holy and loved his son, allow him to be so mistreated
by sinful men? Why would he allow these false
religionists These people who wanted the praise of men, and
they didn't care about the condition of their own heart. They were
like politicians who bought favors from others at the expense of
the public. And so that's what they were,
and they did that in the worst kind of way because they did
it at the cost of men's own souls. They led men, Jesus said, you
make men twofold the child of hell more than yourself. So this
is a horrible crime. Why would God allow that to happen
to his son, the son of his love? So that's the first question
that we ask here. And then the second question
is, If the Lord Jesus Christ prayed so fervently against those
who so abused him, why couldn't he himself exercise his power
to bring retribution on them and vengeance? Why couldn't he
just speak to them and tell them, all right, if this is the way
you're treating me, this is what you're going to receive in the
day of judgment. So he could have taken up the cause right
then and there and put his enemies to shame right then, but he didn't.
He pleaded with God to do that for him. So that's another question
that comes to mind as you read this song. And then maybe a third
question would be this. Why is it that so much detail
would be given here of his sufferings at his death? And in sort of
a partial answer to that question, I would ask this, you know, sometimes
we do things for others and you wonder why you're doing them.
Or maybe after a mother, for example, might get up at night
and feed her baby for a long time, the baby has no real awareness
of how much mom is sacrificing for her needs or his needs. And
so it happens throughout time. I mean, a parent might spend
their lives providing for their children, and they might wonder,
does the child even know what it costs? Well, in this particular
psalm, we see what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is
the result of that? What result, what effect does
it have on us to see the details of his suffering as he is here? First, that God would allow him
to suffer. Second, that he himself would
give such details of his sufferings. Why would he give that kind of
detail for us? And so there's a lot of questions
like this that naturally arise from this psalm, but I think
we can get to the answers of these questions by looking at
it through the lens of the gospel itself. Remember, what is the
gospel? How that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures. So in Isaiah 53 he puts it this
way, he bore our sorrows, he carried our griefs, he was wounded
for our transgressions. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. By his stripes we were healed.
And in Psalm 53 he also says, for the transgression of my people
was he stricken. So to get at the question of
why would God allow this, We take those verses collectively
together, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
and we see in them that the reason that Jesus suffered these things
was because of our sins against God. Now that's a fundamental
truth. We've said it every time we open
our mouth. with the word of God in our hand
because that's the theme of scripture, isn't it? The sufferings of Christ
and the glory that should follow. The lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. When I picked up the Bible when
I was younger and tried to read it, I couldn't understand any
of it. And then it wasn't until later that someone explained
to me the theme, the message of scripture is the Lamb, the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And that's what
this psalm is about. It's about how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scripture. How he died, what
he accomplished. So to answer the question, why
did God allow this? We see the whole purpose of God
in this psalm, don't we? We see his purpose of grace to
save his people. It was because of our sins that
he suffered these things. But why would God even, I mean,
it's one thing to say that he suffered for our sins, therefore
these enemies of his were unleashed, and they came against him, and
attacking him in the very fabric of his being, his soul, his body,
his mind, everything, they were attacking him. And they were
happy to do it, merciless and cruel, and unjust, and false
accusers, and all that they did. Why? Because sin, because of
sin. And that just boggles our mind.
That in itself, we could spend the rest of our time reading
the Bible just looking at that answer to God's question, is
why would God allow this? It was determined before, it
says in Acts 2.23, by the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. So God determined this before,
and so it was God's will And since it was God's will, we must
ask why. Why did God will this? Why did
he want this? Well, the answer is in order
to sanctify his people, to make us holy, to bring us to himself,
to make us his sons, and to give us with his son all the glories
of his children, to make us heirs of God. And that's what scripture
unfolds to us. So what we see here is that in
the answer to the question, why would God allow his son to suffer
these things? We get at the root of the reason
why Christ suffered, it was for our sins. And then we also get
at a deeper root, which is why God would allow Christ to suffer.
Why would he have it in his will and purpose, his predeterminate
counsel and foreknowledge that Christ should suffer for our
sins? And that's where we get at the most blessed truth of
all. It was the love of God for his people. The love of God. He loved his son, but he gave
the son of his love for us. And that boggles our minds. That's
why in Romans 8, verse 32, it says, he that spared not his
own son, but delivered him up for us all. That's the love of
God, isn't it? Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. And that's found in 1 John chapter
4, verse 9 and 10. So you can see these questions. Why did God allow his son to
suffer such? Because it was his will, and
his will was to save, and his will to save sprang from his
love and his grace. And so when you read the details
of this then, the details of Christ's suffering in these verses
of scripture, we see in detail what it cost. God the Father,
when he applied, he unleashed these enemies upon his own son. We see that it cost him dearly
because it was the son of his love that he had delivered up.
And then, of course, we know that the answer to the question
not only why did God the Father allow these things because it
was his will and purpose of grace out of everlasting love for his
people to save them and to make them holy and bring them to himself
at the cost of his own son when they were in themselves enemies
of God. The next question that we had was why the detail here
of the sufferings of Christ? Well, here we see the labor,
the agony of soul, what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ to save
us from our sins. And that, too, gets at the fact
of the will of the Son. His will was one with the Father. He gave himself for our sins
to deliver us, not only from this present evil world, as it
says in Galatians 1.4, but also from the death, the so great
a death that we deserved. And he did it suffering the agony
that's described here in vivid detail. And what does that say
about him? Well, it speaks volumes, doesn't
it, about the incomprehensible love and grace of the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me. But then we also can
see here the extreme wickedness of our own selves. because it
would cost, not only could Christ have delivered himself if he
wanted to, being almighty God, but he didn't because he, in
submission to his father's will, he loved his father, he loved
his father's will, he wanted to save his people from their
sins, but in submission to that will, He gave himself up to these
things to endure them for us. He honored God by doing so, and
he delivered us. It cost him not just a word of
command, like, your servant is healed to the centurion, or to
Lazarus, rise, get up, Lazarus, come forth. It wasn't just a
word of command. He himself, who is the everlasting,
the eternal word of God, had to take on our nature and in
that nature serve God and us with our sins and suffering,
giving himself to these things in the greatest possible agony
that we can't describe. We can't understand it. And that
describes to us a love that we cannot describe, a grace, a stoop
of mercy and condescension beyond our ability to really comprehend. We get some sense of it. This
is the testimony of God's love, isn't it? The love of the father
for his people and for his son that he would give him up. What
great love that is, that God would give his son. that what
He loved from eternity up for us to take on our nature and
forever be in that nature, in heaven, in the glorified, conquering,
triumphant nature of the Son of Man. All these things boggle
our minds, don't they? but we see these things in the
suffering. Then we also see in this psalm the prayers of Christ
in intercession against his enemies. We see him praying here, deliver
me, plead my cause, Lord, take up the shield and the buckler
against, in my defense, against my enemies, and plead my cause,
take the spear up also, take the offensive position against
them, He's putting himself entirely in the hands of his Father. He's
entrusting himself and his people to his Father in this state of
suffering and weakness. at the hands of the most wicked
men, proud and arrogant, hypocrites, injustice and cruelty, merciless,
crowds crying for his crucifixion in exchange for a murderer, and
he had done nothing, spitting in his face, whipping his back,
crowns on his head, nails in his hands and feet, and a spear
in his side, all these things. don't really begin to get us
into what really happened there. We can't even take a little thorn
poking us in the finger from a rosebush. How would you ever
endure nails piercing your hands and feet? It's just indescribable
pain. It's the pain of it all. Not
only the pain, but the shame and the filth of our sins laid
on Him and the guilt of them. and being uncovered against your
enemies and not raising your voice against them. Say nothing,
trusting yourself to God. So he withheld that right, that
sovereign right to exercise authority against his enemies because he
came to do something else. He came to destroy his enemies,
which were the enemies of his people. And the only way he could
do that was making himself the substitute of his people and
bearing their sins before God and letting God, welcoming God
to require an answer to his justice from him for us. And this is
beyond our ability to really appreciate, and yet it's told
to us here. So we can meditate on these things
and see the tremendous love of Christ, the love of the Father,
the submission of the Son to His Father's will, His willingness
to be so meek and lowly that He wouldn't raise a voice against
His accusers, the false accusers and His enemies who punished
Him mercilessly and cruelly in injustice. but he submitted himself
in trust to his father. Amazing grace, isn't it? Amazing
grace. And yet we see him here pleading
to God in prayer against his enemies. And those enemies included
not only Satan and his his devils, his demons, but it included those
men. who actually performed these
things in scripture. Judas, for example, Pilate, Caiaphas,
Annas, the other high priest, the Sanhedrin, all these people.
And yet, in the middle of him being on the cross with the thief,
he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Not everybody, obviously, he prayed here against them. So
there's some Christ prayed for, some he prayed against. And this
causes us to be very solemn in our consideration of this. And
I, one of them, remember the disciples, Lord, is it I? Remember the time, and Denise
and I were just talking about this this last week, the time
when Jesus would speak in parables. It says that he spoke to them
in parables. He told his disciples, because
unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of God, but to those that are without it is not given. It's not given to them. And he
said, and that seeing with their physical eyes, they may not see
with their hearts, and hearing with their physical ears, they
may not hear with their spiritual ears. Thus they should be converted,
and I should heal them and forgive them. So clearly the Lord Jesus
Christ had made a distinction, and he made a distinction here
too, because he's praying against his enemies, and yet he's suffering
for his people. And if you look at verse 18,
with me here in Psalm 35, he says, I will give thanks, I will
give thee thanks in the great congregation. Great congregation,
that's a large one. I will praise thee among much
people. So even though there were enemies
that Christ prayed against in this agony of his soul here in
Psalm 35, pleaded that God himself would take up arms against them
and for his defense, here he says, I will give thee thanks
in the great congregation. What is this? What is this? Can
you imagine suffering? You're on the bed of suffering
or you're being strung up somehow in cruelty. You're not only deprived
of your rights, but you're deprived of your comforts. Your property
is taken from you. Your loved ones are made to think
that you're a criminal. The entire city or whatever is
around you cry out for your death. All of it's as a kangaroo court
trial. It's just made up justice. And
every law is broken in the process. And you have this indignant,
but you're suffering and all this. When in all of that, would
you stop one time and think, as it says here in Psalm 18,
I will give thee thanks in the great congregation, and I will
praise thee among much people. You wouldn't think that because
you're so consumed with your own sufferings. But the Lord
Jesus Christ, in his sufferings, was thinking about his people. And that staggers our imagination
to even begin to conceive of one so selfless, that he would
do all of this with a view to others. And those others, of
course, are his people. Look at Psalm 40. If you turn
the page a couple of pages in my Bible, two pages, in Psalm
chapter 40, listen to these words at the beginning of Psalm 40.
It says, I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto
me and heard my cry. Now this psalm also is a psalm
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll see that in a moment. In
verse 2 he says, He brought me up also out of a horrible pit,
out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock and established
my goings. He hath put a new song in my
mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it and fear and
shall trust in the Lord." So he's talking about this congregation
again, this much people. But notice in verse four, blessed
is that man that maketh the Lord his trust. Not only did the Lord
Jesus trust, but he said everyone who trusts the Lord is blessed.
God has given that trust to them, so that's a blessing. But in
trusting him, they receive the thing they believe him for, which
is our eternal salvation from sin. And he says, blessed is
that man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not
the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. But look at verse five,
Psalm 40, verse five. Many, O Lord my God, are thy
wonderful works, which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which
are to usward, they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee.
If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can
be numbered. Sacrifice and offering thou didst
not desire. My ears hast thou opened, burnt
offerings and sin offerings hast thou not required. Then said
I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of
me. I delight to do thy will, O God, O my God, yea, thy law
is within my heart. Who said these words? We know
from Hebrews chapter 10, verses five and following, these are
the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he entered into the world,
he said, a body now has prepared me in the volume of the book.
It is written of me sacrifice and offering you did not desire.
You would not require them of animals. Therefore, I come to
do thy will. Oh, God. Right. We know this
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. But verse five says. He says, Many, O Lord my God, are they
wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which
are to us word, they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee.
If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can
be numbered. So even though this is the psalm of the Lord Jesus
Christ in his atoning work, yet he speaks not just of himself,
but of his entire congregation, all of his people, his brethren,
those given to him by the Father, those who were one with him,
who sanctified them, as it says in Hebrews chapter two, all these
are being spoken of by him in these prayers of his pleading
in agony and suffering under the wrath of God for our sins.
It was for our sins. by God's will out of his love
and grace, out of the same will of the Son and his love and grace
in giving himself in sacrifice as an offering to God for the
sins of his people. To answer everything God required
with himself for them to take away their sins, make them holy,
bring them to God, make them sons of God by his redeeming
work giving them his spirit to know it, bring them to glory.
They would be with him where he is in his mansions with Christ,
with his father. Amazing grace. And yet he had
to do this in submission to his father, not by just an almighty
stroke of his word, but by his life laid down and all the experiences
laid out here. All the while he's praying to
God, not for himself alone, but for himself with his people as
one with us, usward. the great congregation, the much
people that he prays for here in verse 18. So all these things
flabbergast us, don't they? It really bothers me to know
that it was my sin that he suffered these things. It was for my sin
that he suffered these things. That bothers me. And it moves
me that it was for love that he did that. The Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me. I don't know what else to
say more than that to encourage us to look at this psalm together
and individually and ask the Lord to open it to us to see
here the love of the Father, the love of the Son, the son's
love and the father's love for his people, his own agony because
of our sin and God's great truth and justice and righteousness,
and yet given in love and grace for us, suffering all for us,
and yet at the same time making a distinction between his people
and the abjects. And yet, we were one of them,
weren't we? We were once the enemies of God in our minds and
by wicked works. And yet, for his great love,
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he quickened
us. He made us alive together with
the Lord Jesus Christ. And think about this. The Lord
Jesus Christ, when he came into the world, he said, a body thou
hast prepared me. Now, it was a physical body,
a body just like our body. But we are his body, aren't we?
So Christ's physical body is real. He has it now. He was eternal
God before, the Son, the Son of God. Now He has a body. He's
the fullness of the Godhead in a body, and we're complete in
Him. His body is our life. He in heaven now, in His body,
the fullness of God dwelling, we're complete in Him. And His
body in 1 Corinthians 15, 45 says He's a quickening spirit. His body makes us alive because
He rose from the dead. We rose too. He was delivered
for our offenses. He was raised for our justification.
So all these things, the fact that he came, he took on a body,
he suffered in that body, died, rose again, ascended, now is
in glory in a glorified body, and that we're one with him,
we're bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. Do you see the
union between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people in his
prayers, in his thoughts, in his love, in his grace, in his
victory? It all boggles our mind, doesn't
it? And so I just want to lay those
things before you as an introduction to this psalm, to see the big
picture. And with that introduction, I
just want to draw your attention to this first verse here. I've
written up a different view of what we just talked about here
in the handout. If you get that, you can look
at that. But just look at this first verse. Plead my cause,
O Lord, with them that strive with me. Fight against them that
fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler.
These are tools of defense. A shield, you know what that
is. You hold it up, bam, the arrows hit it, the spear hits
it, the club hits it, the rocks hit it. Everything that hits
the shield bounces off. It doesn't hit you. Lord, be
that for me. A buckler, same thing, a smaller.
It covers the most vital organs. A little shield, be that for
me. My defense, stand up for my health. And he says, and draw out also
the spear. Don't only take defensive posture against me. Take the
spear and run it through my enemies. Destroy them. Draw out also the
spear. Stop the way against them that
persecute me and say to my soul, I am thy salvation. Now, because the Lord Jesus prayed
these things to his father in submission to his father's will,
trusting him to deliver him, He prayed. It was real. He was
vulnerable. He had placed himself into the
hands of his father. If he didn't deliver him, he
couldn't be delivered. And his people with him. And
yet he trusted. He knew he would because of the
righteous cause his father had given him to fulfill, and which
he did fulfill. but I love the way he did this. And we can also
borrow his words, and do you know as merciful as his God and
Father was to him, and as righteous as he was in executing the very
judgment he prayed for, we now, him having suffered all the things
that we suffer in the agony that he suffered for our sins, he
sits on the throne, and it's a throne of grace, And we're
told in Hebrews 4, 14 through 16, we are to go to him because
he can sympathize with us. He can feel our infirmities.
He has compassion on us that we may find grace to help in
time of need. And do you know that we can say
to the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, plead my cause, my case, answer
for me. You have to take up the argument
against my enemies. You have to take up my justification
in heaven. God has already justified us
in him because he already received a full answer to his justice
in righteousness and in truth and a fulfillment, a magnification
of his grace and love. So all this is in some sense
has been accomplished and yet he intercedes for us in heaven. And so we can come to the Lord
Jesus Christ and receive the same mercy that he pleaded for,
only now we see as our high priest how much he can identify with
us and sympathize, empathize with us, who also suffer at the
hands of our enemies. And what is that? Well, I don't
know about you, but my enemy is myself and my sin. And there's
nothing more that I want to see. And I can plead with urgency
and genuine anger, really, against my enemies to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, save me from my sins. He's
the savior of sinners, isn't he? Then go to him. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word. Help us as we read it, to meditate
on it, and to see you in it, and see your great purpose of
grace, and love eternal, love incomprehensible, that it goes
beyond any height, depth, breadth, width, anything we can comprehend. We need your grace to know it,
but we'll never come to the end of it. We see your purpose of
grace here, the submission, the willing submission and love of
the Lord Jesus Christ for us, even though we were sinners and
enemies and no different than those who put him on the cross.
And yet he singled us out. He made us the objects of his
love and he declared your greatness to us in the midst of all of
his prayers. He was thinking of his people
because he was suffering for them. And he identified with
us so much that he brought us into his prayers as one with
him. What love and grace this is. Lord, help us to see our
Savior trusting you in this and pleading for his deliverance
from his enemies. Let us also come to you and not
take up the arms of this world against them, but take up our
hearts to our Savior who alone is our deliverer and trust him
in all things. In his name we pray, amen.