BY YOUR APPOINTMENT THEY STAND THIS DAY ...

By your appointment they stand this day,

For all things are your servants. Psalm 119:91

Surely this appointment is reflected in Paul’s letter to the Colossians speaking of Christ, where the Lord revealed that:

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. Col 1:16-18 (ESV)

All things were created by the Lord’s Word alone.

All things, with the exception of sinful man, daily, hourly, and minute by minute – answer the purpose their Creator gave them.

I alone, in my sinfulness – reject the Word of the Lord, thus rejecting the purpose my Creator gave me, and thus reject my Lord Creator.

Yet even in my rebellion, in my sin, my Lord made an appointment that I might yet still stand.

Surely His promise that the “seed of the woman” would come and crush the head of the serpent, was the Lord making an appointment to deal with what makes me fallen, and makes me to fall.

Surely this promise, the second of the Lord’s promises, was His appointing of a time and a means by which He would deal with His first promise of death to those who ate of the forbidden, who rejected the Word, who rejected their purpose and their Creator Lord.

Surely this promise was the Lord’s appointment for His servant Son – the Lord Jesus Christ to stand in my place.

Surely this promise was the Lord’s appointment for His servant Son to stand in the place of judgment against me, stand in the place of God’s wrath against me, stand in the place of the fallen, for we, for I cannot stand, and rise to stand over all that is fallen.

Surely this promise was the Lord’s appointment for His servant Son –

- to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin,

- to be circumcised on the eighth day,

- to confess His faith in the temple,

- to be baptized,

- to be tempted,

- to teach and preach,

- to heal the sick, the lame, the deaf and the dumb,

- to raise the dead,

- to be betrayed,

- to give His flesh and blood in a meal that I might be strengthened by His keeping of all my appointments,

- to be so troubled and sweat so, as to sweat blood,

- to be lied about and condemned,

- to be abandoned by those who claimed to follow Him unto death,

- to be denied by his own around a fire,

- to be torturously beaten bloody,

- to be condemned by one who knew his innocence,

- to be crucified,

- to receive insults and mocking,

- to receive the sins of the world,

- to plead for the forgiveness of all as we grope in the ignorance of sin,

- to make arrangements for His mother,

- to thirst and receive no water,

- to suffer the wrath, the abandonment of God against my sins,

- to finish the wrath of God,

- to commend His spirit in the hands of His Father,

- to breath His last,

- to be laid in the tomb,

- to be sealed in the tomb,

- to descend into hell to proclaim the victory of the Lord’s appointments,

- to rise in His flesh on the third day,

- to bring Himself and His peace to those locked in rooms for fear,

- to eat food again with those who once betrayed him,

- to appear to many,

- to give me the sacred gift of baptism by which I receive His keeping of my appointments,

- to give me the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

- to give me a great commission,

- to ascend the right hand of the Father.

Surely it was by His appointment I was baptized into Christ and all His appointments made and kept for me.

Surely it was by HIs appointment that I received the Holy Spirit in that baptism.

Surely it is by His appointment that I receive the absolution.

Surely it is by His appointment that I receive the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Surely it is by His appointment that I live and move in Him, in His body the Holy Christian Church.

Surely it is by His appointment that I live and move and have my being in Him.

Surely it is by His appointment with me and God on a Cross that I stand this day as His servant.

Surely it is by His appointment that my comfort shall stand because He has stood and forever stands against all that would cause my sufferings to be eternal.

Surely it is by His appointment that my peace shall stand because He has stood and forever stands against all that would make war against me and within me.

Surely it is by His appointment that my hope shall stand because He has stood and forever stands against all that would bring me despair.

Surely it is by His appointment that my faith shall stand because He has stood and forever stands in His appointed place for me.

Thanks be to God through His appointed Savior for me, even Jesus Christ! Amen.