'SUNDAY WORSHIP 12.7.2020

Reading Passage : Psalm 32:7

“You are a hiding place for me, you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance”

Dear Brethren,

Greetings to you from Church of Christ the King, Libya.

Psalm 32, is called a Psalm of Maskil, that has teaching for the reader. Normally, any teaching is based on the knowledge that was already gained by the teacher from books, or from previous teachings or from experiments as well as experience.

When Martin Luther was speaking about this Psalm, he said that it echoes the view of Paul, that we are pardoned and forgiven by the grace of God and not by work especially when he was referring to the first 2 verses.

However, for today’s meditation, we focus our view on the 7th verse “You are my Hiding Place” In fact, the Hiding Place is the area that no one could see us. The hiding place is necessary when we are in danger. The hiding place may not be in the premises that is visible to everyone but could be a place far from the madding crowd and away from the snare. In Psalm 22: 12, David was very much afraid of the bulls that have surrounded him, and He was looking for a shelter and that shelter that he found in the Lord. (Psalm 18: 2, 3)

The animals find shelter in the caves, and the rabbits and the boars make their hiding place under the ground with the holes and the wild monkeys find a hiding place up in the trees and the lovely birds in their nests far from the reach of enemies to keep their birdies. Yes, we are vulnerable in different areas but there is a shelter in Jesus who is the Rock of Ages, and there is a cleft for us to hide from the enemy’s arrows.

In the Bible, we find in Joshua 2, the two spies from the camp of Israel were looking for a hiding place. The spies were sent to Jericho, and found shelter in a Rahab’s house. Even though, she was a harlot she did not betray them when the soldiers came in search of them. She hid them in the upper room put hey over them and thus they were protected from the enemies. Even though, she had a bad profession she somehow knew about the God of Israel perhaps from some of the customers who visited her earlier. She provided them a shelter and so she and her family were protected. Joshua 2: 15 -16 speaks of a the red rope through which they were slowly got down in to the from the big wall and escaped.

When the people inherited the land, she was no more a whore, rather she found a place in the genealogy of Israel, that means one of the spies married her and in that lineage King David was born. (Matthew 1: 5)

You would have read the poem Abo Ben Adam, who gave the shelter to an enemy who had killed his own son. When he came seeking for shelter and a hiding place, he provided it to him in the night and gave his best horse to escape early in the morning despite the fact, he knew very well that the enemy was the person who killed his only son.

Dear brethren, what about our lives? The Bible, we were the enemies of God because of our sins but there is a shelter for us and that shelter is issued by the cleft that was made on Jesus who is the Rock of our Salvation.

Romans 5: 10

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son…”

Prayer

Loving Lord, we thank you because you are our hiding place, and in you we find a great shelter, and in Jesus we have the hiding from the enemy attacks. Lord, we thank you for the great sacrifice that you have made to secure us. Give us all your grace despite our undeserving qualities. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.