Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me

Psalm 35:1-16 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Prayer for Rescue from Enemies.  A Psalm of David.

Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
Fight against those who fight against me.
² Take hold of buckler and shield
And rise up for my help.
³ Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me;
Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”
⁴ Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life;
Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me.
⁵ Let them be like chaff before the wind,
With the angel of the Lord driving them on.
⁶ Let their way be dark and slippery,
With the angel of the Lord pursuing them.
⁷ For without cause they hid their net for me;
Without cause they dug a pit for my soul.
⁸ Let destruction come upon him unawares,
And let the net which he hid catch himself;
Into that very destruction let him fall.

⁹ And my soul shall rejoice in the Lord;
It shall exult in His salvation.
¹⁰ All my bones will say, “Lord, who is like You,
Who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him,
And the afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?”
¹¹ Malicious witnesses rise up;
They ask me of things that I do not know.
¹² They repay me evil for good,
To the bereavement of my soul.
¹³ But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth;
I humbled my soul with fasting,
And my prayer kept returning to my bosom.
¹⁴ I went about as though it were my friend or brother;
I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother.
¹⁵ But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together;
The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me,
They slandered me without ceasing.
¹⁶ Like godless jesters at a feast,
They gnashed at me with their teeth.

We’ve all heard it said and certainly sometimes it seems like life is not fair. There are times when it seems that bad things do happen to good people. There are times when it seems like evil is winning. I cannot explain all the circumstances and the situations that arise, or the reason that sometimes bad or unrighteous people seem to get ahead of those who do good. All I do know is that evil and bad is not from God. In fact He is our hope against evil in the world. The psalmist says:    Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield And rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”    Though are bodies have a limit to their number of years, our souls are eternal. That He is the salvation of our souls is that He is our eternal salvation. We can rise above the unfairness of life, knowing that there is more to our existence than this temporal life. In Psalm 23:4 the psalmist says:  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.   Because God is with us and He is the salvation of our soul, death is nothing to fear. It is only a shadow that covers the entryway into our eternal existence with God. If death is nothing to fear, then we can endure and persevere through the unfair struggles of this life, knowing they, like life itself, are only temporary.

Romans 8:31 says:   If God is for us, who is against us?  The passage continues, in verses 35-39  saying:  Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword… I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.    So it is not only who can be against us, but what, nothing or no one can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  In today’s text the psalmist says:  My soul shall rejoice in the Lord;It shall exult in His salvation.All my bones will say, “Lord, who is like You,Who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him, And the afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?”  The greatest weapon we have against evil and evil doers is to praise and exult God and His salvation. Psalm 30:5 says:  Weeping may stay the night, but joy comes in the morning. Lamentations 3:22-23 says:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Every day, each new morning is an opportunity to rejoice in God’s steadfast love. There may not be an answer or an end to the evil we face in this unfair life. In today’s text the psalmist says:  at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together; The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me, They slandered me without ceasing. Like godless jesters at a feast, They gnashed at me with their teeth.  In John 16:33Jesus says:  “These things I have spoken to you, thatin Me you may have peace.In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer,I have overcome the world.”    We have overcome with Him, by Him and through Him. We are more than conquerors through Him, our eternal salvation.

Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield And rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”My soul shall rejoice in the Lord; It shall exult in His salvation.  Amen.