.png)
By: Michael Kornelis You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.
The nations have sunk into the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
The LORD has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Selah
The wicked shall return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.
For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail;
let the nations be judged before you!
Put them in fear, O LORD!
Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah
The nation steeped in the blood of civil war President Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. The speech was brief, a page or two, but however few, the President’s words cut to the heart. A small excerpt:
"Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'"
Here President Lincoln quotes Psalm 19, in the neighborhood of our own passage. And to even more thoroughly color his message with the verbiage of the Psalmist what he is saying is this. In the Civil War our nation had sunk into the pit that it itself made; in the net that we had laid out our own foot was caught; by the wicked work of our own hands we had been ensnared. In short, Lincoln was saying in no uncertain terms that the Civil War was God’s judgement on America, that God had weighed all that innocent blood drawn with the lash, and it was now to be paid in equal measure with blood drawn by the sword. For as God heard the cries of his sons in Egypt long ago so he heard the cries of his sons in America. And the Psalmists’ words still ring true: the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
What I want to offer is a humble and cautious meditation, a careful self-reflection. Is God’s judgement still upon us today? In his own time the Apostle James insisted that cheated laborers in the field still cry out to the Lord. And if the blood of Abel cried out from the ground how much more does the blood of the unborn cry out? Shall the laborers’ unpaid gains be sunk again? Shall the blood drawn by the abortionist’s knife be paid back? And shall we have a just plea when justice comes? Let us only pray with the Psalmist...
Arise, O LORD! Let us not prevail against ourselves;
May we be judged before you!
Teach us to fear you, O LORD!
That we may remember that we are but men! Selah