Deliverance

In short

Being saved, but in, like, a normal sense of the word – not a religious kind of “saved.” It’s a big theme of the Psalms and other Bible poems.

Why it is important

The Bible poets want us to always remember that God has delivered His people many times over, and then armed with that knowledge, we can have the confidence to ask God for deliverance and know that He is able to save us.

Examples

879 of them*. I made a chart. Some highlights:

1. 25% of scriptures about deliverance** are in Psalms
2. Next is the other huge poetry book, Isaiah, at a mere 9%
3. 74% of those scriptures are in the OLD Testament

And that’s my big point today. We think of “salvation” as a New Testament thing, but Jews were REALLY concerned about it, too. But in a physical sense.

I don’t mean that to be discouraging at all. Their faith and trust in God’s salvation was really strong! There is a lot to be said for a faith that is based in evidence of God working in our lives, and the lives of others!

Theology and doctrine

Having said all that, spiritual salvation certainly is in view here, I would say.

Now, what I DON’T mean is that every time we see deliverance in the Old Testament that it is talking about being cleansed of sins. Honestly, that’s probably NEVER what is meant. (I can’t think one, anyway….)

BUT, the idea of applying belief in God’s physical salvation to belief in God’s spiritual salvation runs deep in the New Testament.

• Noah was saved by water; likewise, we can be saved through baptism (1 Peter 3:20-21)
• If God punished the wicked all those times, then He can certainly save us spiritually (2 Peter 2:4-9)
• The faith and suffering of the legends of the Old Testament was a shadow of what God promised us (Heb 11:35-39)

Footnotes

* Most of the 879 relate to the idea of being saved (in some way), but “deliver” is the one that has a few false results, like Ezra 5:14 (documents delivered to an official). But it’s still very few and far between, and I’m not in a position to sift through 806 verses.

** I searched for:

• Deliver
• Save
• Salvation
• Rescue
• And anything containing those words, like “delivers,” delivered,” “deliverance”
• Well, I guess I missed “saving” and “rescuing”
• OK, you get the idea, though. I’ll rerun the numbers another day.