Jo Acharya | June 6, 2024

“Part your heavens, LORD, and come down… deliver me and rescue me…”
– Psalm 144:5, 7 (NIV)

This psalm is a song of war. David wanted God to show up with power and might, and defeat his enemy.

Little did David know that one day God really would part the heavens and come down, in a much more literal way than David imagined. Yet he would not destroy those who were against him, but extend mercy and forgiveness.

Rather than smoking mountains and fiery lightning, Jesus would bring salvation and healing – even to his enemies. He would secure the ultimate victory, not from human armies but from Satan, sin and death.

Parting the heavens reminds me of the parting of the red sea, where God removes a barrier in order to rescue his people from slavery. In that story God’s message to Pharaoh is “Let my people go, so they may worship me.”

Now the barrier between heaven and earth is removed by God becoming man, and we are set free from slavery to sin so that we may worship him and even be welcomed as his children.

Zechariah prophesies this when he sings that the Messiah is coming ‘to rescue us from the hand of our
enemies to enable us to serve him without fear’ (Luke 1:74).

Like David we see only a tiny glimpse of what God has planned for us. He trusted God to deliver him in battle from men he saw as enemies. But God’s intention was so much bigger. In Christ, enemies become brothers and sinners become saints.

As David concludes his song, “Blessed is the people whose God is the LORD.”

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