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Jesus is the Answer to the Question – Do I Really Need to be Rescued?

Jesus is the Answer to the Question – Do I Really Need to be Rescued?

A Question – Do I Really Need to be Rescued?

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.” (Psalm 107:19-21).

Rend Collective – Rescuer (Good News) [Official Music Video]

‘He saved us.” The word for save here is “Yasha,” which means to be rescued and set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus rescues us, when He delivers us from our inner spiritual prison, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place.

Psalm 18:19 = “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!”  (The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straightjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straightjacket).

Psalm 31:8 = “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have rescued me, you have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.”

Psalm 118:5 = “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.”

The messianic Jewish Bible scholar, Brother Rex Andrews, points us to Psalm 118:5, and notes that the Hebrew word for “distress” suggests a siege, a heart held captive to a suffocating and restrictive siege. Without Jesus, we are in extremely constrained circumstances, surrounded by enemies, with no way of escape. We need a rescue operation to free us from our enemies: Our fallen human nature; our inclination to sin without the ability to change ourselves; the ongoing spiritual warfare conducted by the Adversary and his demons; a broken society that makes it difficult to do the right thing; our wounded past that needs healing; deep-seated patterns that are impossible to overcome. But this is the Good News: Jesus makes a way where there is no way. He breaks the enemy’s battle lines, destroys the siege, and sets us free from our enemies. Jesus is our only hope to accomplish this act of liberation, release us from captivity, and grant to us the freedom to be enslaved no longer to our sinfulness.

“For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have our salvation, our redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14).

Deliverance. The gospel idea of a savior started with Moses. He delivered the Jewish nation from slavery in Egypt, and he brought them to the Promised Land forty years later. Moses freed his people from bondage. God gave Moses the mission of delivering his people, and Moses succeeded. The Exodus has been used ever since in Christian thought as an historical picture of a spiritual truth. God appointed Moses to be a savior. God appointed Jesus to be the Savior. Jesus’ mission spiritually fulfilled Moses’ mission. Moses brought the Jews salvation from slavery. Jesus brought all people salvation from sin. Moses brought the physical reality of deliverance, Jesus brought the spiritual reality of deliverance. Moses illustrated the gospel story, while Jesus embodied it. Moses led the old Exodus. Jesus led the new Exodus, the exodus of the soul, freeing humanity from the bondage of, not Egypt, but sin.

Yeshua. Yeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus. It means Yahweh who saves, or LORD to the rescue. Yeshua, or Y’shua, is a common form of the Hebrew name Yehoshua, which translates to Joshua. The name Jesus is actually an English version of the Greek version (Yay-soos) of the Hebrew Yeshua. And since Greek was the common international language used when spreading word about Yeshua, Jesus (Yay-soos) is the name most commonly used. Yeshua is the name most commonly used by Hebrew-speaking Christians in Israel and followers of Messianic Judaism. The name Yeshua represents His Hebrew identity, and anyone who called Jesus by His Hebrew name while He was on earth would have called Him Yeshua. The Hebrew word for salvation is Yeshuah. Since Jesus is our salvation, we can say with confidence that Yeshua is our yeshuah.

Rescue (Feat. Tiffany Hudson) – Jordan St. Cyr [Official Video]

The remarkable and anonymous Psalm 107 offers several vignettes of what has been called “God’s Great Works of Deliverance.” We find people in all kinds of trouble in this psalm, and the Lord provided rescue and salvation each and every time. Most scholars claim that this psalm can be taken either literally or as metaphor, or more probably both. Historically we can point to the Chosen People here, experiencing exile and all sorts of problems because of their disobedience to their Lord Yahweh. But there are many who say, especially in verses 10-18, that the description of people hopelessly imprisoned in a dark, windowless dungeon is rightly understood as a picture of our spiritual captivity before the arrival of Jesus Christ. This is a realistic picture of the inner prison of the heart before redemption and deliverance. This is certainly a bleak snapshot of the state of our soul without Jesus. Weaving together many translations of Ps. 107:10-18, the following paraphrase can best be understood at the spiritual level, and is what salvation looks like when we are delivered from our spiritual captivity. I have written the following in the more direct and personal first person instead of the more impersonal and distant third person.

“We are those who sat in darkness, locked up in a gloomy prison, living in the shadows that were as dark as death. We were prisoners in absolute misery, bound in chains. All this because we defied the instructions of Lord Yahweh, we despised the counsel of our God, scorning the thoughts of the Most High. So Yahweh humbled our hearts through suffering, and if we fell down, there was no one there to pick us up again. We cried out to the Lord in our distress, and He saved us. He rescued us from our miserable plight. He delivered us from the gloomy darkness and the deathly shadows. He shattered our chains of captivity, He broke the jail wide open. We thank Yahweh for His goodness and lovingkindness, His faithful love for us, His wonderful works for the children of mankind. He broke open those gates of bronze, He smashed the iron bars, and He shattered those heavy jailhouse doors. Yes, we cried out to Lord Yahweh in our distress, and He saved our lives from the Abyss, the pit of destruction, from certain death. We will thank the Lord for His mercy, faithfulness, and goodness!” (a paraphrase of Psalm 107:10-18 by Steve Larson)

This would be the testimony of our fallen heart if it could talk. What better way to paint a picture of sin holding us captive, hopelessly locked into a dark dungeon without any true freedom. The truth is that we aren’t strong enough to break those chains. Only Jesus has “bound the strong man” and mercifully liberated us in a dramatic spiritual jailbreak. Only He can break every chain.

Tasha Cobbs Leonard – Break Every Chain (Live At Passion City Church)

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  (Galatians 5:1).

Freedom: (Greek, “aleutheroo”); to liberate from captivity or bondage; to deliver from a certain fate; to set free from a hopeless addiction or dependence; to remove the shackles of confinement; to save from an internal prison of woundedness; to remove whatever it is that has us bound; to enjoy a carefree, childlike spirit after being squelched or limited in some way.

The Holy Spirit Frees Us From:

…  A certain destiny of condemnation, a guilty verdict on Judgment Day;

…  The automatic impulse to satisfy our sinful nature;

…  Being subject to the inner decay and corruption of our fallen world;

…  Moral confusion in a world with no absolutes;

…  The emptiness and futility of selfish ambition;

…  The tendency to deceive ourselves and others;

…  A broken and unsatisfying relationship with God;

…  The stain of shame and guilt from our past;

…  The tyranny of the Self;

…  Our vulnerability in the spiritual warfare with Satan and the forces of evil;

…  Our stubborn and foolish ignorance of the truth;

…  Our frustrated and powerless attempts at perfecting ourselves and others;

…  A pointless life with no hopes of an ultimate purpose and meaning;

…  A nagging, troubling uncertainty about life after death;

The Holy Spirit Frees Us in Order to Enjoy:

…  A new spiritual DNA, while our sinful nature is disintegrating;

…  The unspeakable relief of forgiveness of our sinful nature, the consequences of sin, and our past sins;

…  The wonderful prospect of being able to grow in goodness and wisdom;

…  The certain hope of eternal life with God in the land of Glory;

…  The deeply satisfying friendship with other believers who form our new family in God;

…  The transforming experience of worshipping God in all sincerity with adoration and reverence;

…  The guidance of a godly moral foundation from which to make moral choices and God-honoring decisions;

…  The experience of a heavenly peace that passes understanding;

…  The fresh air of grace, God’s unearned and merciful favor;

…  The assurance that we will become increasingly like Jesus in character and innocence;

…  Our adoption by the Father into His family through the Holy Spirit, free to roam in His kingdom;

…  God’s welcome to join the intimate fellowship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;

…  The growing ability to think with the mind of Christ;

…  The agape love that is being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit;

…  A fulfilling and meaningful life following Jesus into the adventure of Faith;

…  The stimulating and exciting pursuit of knowledge and understanding of God’s world and His truth;

… The resurgence of the creative imagination as we are living into the inspiration of the Holy Spirit;

…  The profoundly life-giving absorption in the Word of God, the holy Scriptures;

…  The satisfying ability to love and forgive others at a deeply genuine level;

…  The supernatural power of the Holy Spirit transforming our whole being into a new creature;

…  The significant privilege of approaching the Almighty God in prayer and intercession;

…  The profound encouragement of God’s intimate presence with us in life’s inevitable dark valleys;

…  A renewed, hopeful and grateful appreciation of the gift of life.

CityAlight – Saved My Soul

“If you continue in my teachings, abiding in what I have said and done, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. (Put another way), If you make yourself at home in my Word and make yourself a student of mine, you will intimately experience the Reality of Christ, and you will be spiritually liberated into freedom. And when Jesus, the very Son of God and the Author of Truth, liberates you, you will be completely free.” (John 8:31-32, 36).