Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Alright, guys, let's go ahead and wrap up the week. All week we have been in Psalm 136, and we focus on God's steadfast love and mercy. So each day we're looking at a different section of the Psalm, and today we're wrapping it up by looking at verses 23 through 26. I'll read them now. It is he who remembered us in our lowest state for his steadfast love endures forever, and rescued us from our foes for his steadfast love endures forever. He who gives food to all flesh for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven for his steadfast love endures forever. So he remembered us in our lowest state. So, guys, let's just be honest, we suck, all right? All of us, every last one of us, none of us are good. Okay, Psalm 14, verses 2 and 3, they have all turned aside together, they have become corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one. Okay, but oh, but some people have good hearts. You may have heard someone say, or you may have even said that. Nope, we don't get that either. Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Some translations call it desperately wicked, right? But he gives us food to all flesh. Psalm 3410, one of my favorite scriptures in the entire biblical canon, the young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. And he rescues us from our foes. So we certainly saw that with the previous section of this psalm that we discussed yesterday. But God doesn't just rescue us from our physical foes on this planet, he rescues us from our ultimate foe, which is our sin nature. Romans 5, starting in verse 6, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, verse 8. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. But let's go back to the refrain that is repeated 26 times in Psalm 136. How can we be sure of that? I mean, forever seems like a really long time. I mean, how could the writer of this psalm have faith in that? Because the faith that was imputed to the author of this psalm is the same faith that is imputed to Christians today. And look, imputation means it's a one-way street. And I don't, you know, understand fully how that works, but I trust that the word of God is true, and that's what it says. But imputed to the believer is a faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Because God sent his one and only Son to this planet on a rescue mission for all of humanity. After three years of public ministry, Jesus was betrayed by Judas and delivered into the hands of the Romans at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin. He was beaten, he was flogged with a cat of ninetails that would have stripped so much flesh off of his body that his internal organs were likely exposed. His beard was ripped from his face. He had a crown made of acacia thorns. These thorns would have been two to four inches long. It was crushed down onto his brow and forehead, and that's a part of the body with some of the most sensitive nerve endings on the entire body. He was forced to carry the crossbeam of his cross through the streets of Jerusalem while he was chastised and screamed at and spit on by the crowd. He had nails, but I mean, don't think like nails like what you would get at Home Depot. Think like, you know, railroad, right? You know, something that you would drive into a railroad tie. He had something like that, driven through his hands and feet and into the cross. He hung there on the cross in excruciating physical pain, and then he suffered the diabolical pain of God turning his back on him because Jesus had become sin for what? And for who? He became sin on our behalf. And likely because of suffocation, he died, and he was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And that was supposed to be the end of the story. But God's steadfast love endures forever. And to prove that, God's full rescue plan came to fruition in that after three days in the tomb, it became apparent that the tomb would be a borrowed and not permanent one because Jesus was resurrected by God and he walked out of that grave, having paid in full the sin debt that humanity owed to a holy and just Father God. And all we have to do is put our faith in that reality. If you have done so, you must share that with those around you. And if you have never done so, I compel you to do that today. Thank you for your attention this week. Stay sharp.

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