intercessor – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

Our King, our Savior, our Intercessor

In a lot of ways, Psalms 20-21 are connected. In Psalm 20, you see the king asking for God’s help. In Psalm 21, you see the king praising God for the help he was given.

Obviously, David was thinking of his own experience as he wrote these songs.

But in them we can also see Jesus in whom these words were ultimately fulfilled.

By raising Jesus from the dead and giving him life eternal (Psalm 21:4), we see that the Father remembered and accepted the sacrifice Jesus gave on the cross. (Psalm 20:3)

The Father has crowned him as King, and conferred on him majesty and splendor. (21:5)

And when Christ returns, he will rule over all. (21:8-12)

But one thing that strikes me is this word:

You have given him his heart’s desire
and have not denied the request of his lips. (21:2)

This matches with the earlier prayer found in Psalm 20.

May he give you what your heart desires
and fulfill your whole purpose. (20:4)

One of the wonderful truths that we have as Christians is that Jesus as our high priest intercedes for us. And when he prays for us, the Father always answers yes.

He answered yes concerning our salvation. And he will answer yes to Jesus when he prays for us in our struggles as Christians. (Hebrews 7:25-26)

So as the writer of Hebrews says,

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

Miserable comforters, a true Comforter

After hearing Eliphaz’s words, Job once again tears into his tormenters saying,

“I have heard many things like these;
you are miserable comforters, all of you!

Will your long-winded speeches never end?
What ails you that you keep on arguing?

I also could speak like you,
if you were in my place;
I could make fine speeches against you
and shake my head at you.

But my mouth would encourage you;
comfort from my lips would bring you relief. (Job 16:2-5)

In other words, “Stop already. You keep repeating the same things over and over and it’s not helping. If you were in my place, I could do the same thing to you and tear you apart with my words.

“But I wouldn’t do that. I’d have compassion on you. I’d encourage you. I’d comfort you. Why don’t you do that for me?”

He then laments how bad his life is, but at the end of this chapter, he says something interesting.

Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.

My intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
on behalf of a man he pleads with God
as one pleads for a friend. (19-21)

As bad as his friends were in comforting him, he believed that there was someone in heaven pleading his case for him. That there was someone who was faithful who was interceding for him.

And it was true. The Bible says that we do have someone who intercedes for us. Paul writes in Romans 8,

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

When we like Job are suffering, when we don’t know how to pray, and when all our friends let us down, there is one who intercedes for us: the Holy Spirit. And he intercedes us in accordance with the Father’s will.

What is the result?

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

So many times we only look at verse 28, but fail to see why it is that God works for our good. It is because the Holy Spirit himself is interceding on our behalf.

Are you like Job, feeling like God has abandoned you? Like God is in fact against you?

Know that it is not true. The Holy Spirit himself is interceding for you. And because of that, you can know with certainty that God is working for your good, even if you can’t see it right now.