Word Study on Deliverance

The deliverance we are promised in Christ does not fall under the heading of “wishful thinking.” Throughout the Word of God, we have a record of God’s faithfulness to his people over and over again. Even as they vacillated back and forth, God stood firm. Their faithlessness did not eradicate his faithfulness.

We live in a world that bombards us with information every second of the day. Some of the information is accurate, but more often than not, particularly if someone is trying to sell us something, the information is not trustworthy.

By contrast, God’s Word is 100 percent trustworthy. As we look at areas of our lives where we long to know God’s freedom and deliverance, you may feel you have tried my suggestions before and failed. What I long for you to see is that we are not asked to deliver ourselves. That is God’s job. We are simply asked to let go of the things that are hurting us but that we still cling to. God has promised to deliver us.

The word deliver is a powerful declaration of the passionate commitment of God to save his people. Looking at the original meaning of the word, as used in the Psalms or in the words of Jesus or the apostle Paul, helps us understand the depth and breadth of what we believe and also help us understand how to pray.

Psalm 72:12–13 is a psalm of King Solomon. In it, he declares:

Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him;
All nations shall serve Him.
For He will deliver the needy when he cries.
The poor also, and him who has no helper. (emphasis added).

The word used here for “deliver” is the Hebrew word natsal, meaning “to recover, to rescue.”

In Psalm 50, we find another Hebrew word used for deliver:

Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. (v. 15; emphasis added)

In this passage, the Hebrew word used for “deliver” is chalats, which means “to strengthen.”

What wonderful promises! Not only will God rescue and recover us when we put our trust in him, but he will also strengthen us.

Likewise the Lord’s Prayer, found in Matthew 6, is brought to a powerful conclusion by Christ’s confident prayer for deliverance:

Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.
Give us our food for today, and forgive us our sins,
just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation, but deliver us
from the evil one. (vv. 9-13 nlt; emphasis added)

The Greek word here for “deliver” is rhuomai. It’s a strong word meaning “to draw out with force and violence, to drag out of danger.” The same word is used in Luke 1: “We have been rescued from our enemies, so we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness forever” (v. 74; emphasis added).

This particular use of delivered is also part of the prophecy of Zechariah. You may remember that Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, was the cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him that his wife was going to have a son and they should name him John. Zechariah was very skeptical, as his wife was well past her child-bearing years. Gabriel was insulted by his questioning. He told Zechariah that he stood in the very presence of God and that because of his doubt he would be unable to speak until the moment the baby was born. When Elizabeth finally gave birth, Zachariah wrote on a tablet that the baby was to be named John.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, we find the passage where Paul laid out the dilemma of every believer: Why do I do the things I don’t want to do and don’t do the very things I want to do? “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (7:24; emphasis added). In other words, who will rhoumai me, drag me, with great force pull me from this miserable place?

He answers his own question with this glorious declaration: “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord” (7:25). In this verse, Paul expresses the heartfelt cry of every believer at some point in his or her life. Which one of us has not struggled in some area of our lives and felt so desperate that it would take the drastic intervention of God to pull us free?

We may have assigned the word delivered to the realm of the pizza boy, but when God tells us that he will deliver us it is a powerful promise. He will rescue and strengthen us. With the full power of God he will wrench us from the grip of our enemies. We have an advocate and defender like no other. Praise be to God!

Excerpted from Let Go: Live Free of the Burdens All Women Know © 2008 by Sheila Walsh. Published in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.