These verses are a bit of a mystery to me at this time. Each verse has a meaning that I understand and accept. However, I am having trouble understanding them as a collective whole. How are they bound? How does one rely on and build on the prior?
Martin Luther was so inspired by this psalm that he wrote one of the first hymns, “A Mighty Fortress is our God”. Though having personal meaning, Martin meant for the congregation to sing his hymn collectively. This would be the first since the years of the apostles that all in the church would sing to the Lord in worship. Martin pulled his theme from the last verse, the refrain first stated in verse 7. Other parts of the hymn do not seem to be mentioned in “A Might Fortress is our God.”
The desolation in verse 8 is a work of the Lord that I am called to come and see. How is that linked to making wars cease to the ends of the earth? I can understand verse 10 as it relates to verse 9. Sure, I can be still, and know that the Lord is God after the war ends and I enjoy the Lord’s victory, but how is that tied to the means to the end, that is the desolations?
Perhaps it is this; that which is laid waste, forsaken, and abandoned was the cause of the problem all along. The enemy that attacks me the most is the sinful nature within me and the death within me. These two are continually assaulting me. Jesus devastated my sin on the cross. Jesus desolated death by rising again. Like the women at the foot of the cross, I will come to the cross. Like Peter and John and the women let me go to the empty grave. I can come and see the works of the Lord Jesus. I can experience Jesus’ battles that ceased their wars to the ends of the earth.
