My Husband is an EIGHT year US
Army veteran,
He Served
Two
Iraq tours and
Seven war zone countries
He's slept in ditches in the
RAIN,
been attacked by DESERT creatures,
Im Proud and Appreciative
I AM
however, thoroughly Anti Gun
(Outside of military use)
Always have been
Generations of military service,
Never guns in the Home
The Time has come,
I lost the
TWELVE year battle,
It's been a Long Road,
I fought the good fight
He's buying our 12 year old
Son
a B-B 'gun and I can't stop him
Pray for Me as I Cry us a
River
The horn of salvation
is mentioned several times
in the Bible,
but what does this expression mean?
What does salvation have to do
with a horn?
In the Old Testament,
the word horn signifies many
Of course,
one usage of horn was to refer to a pointed bony structure growing out of an animal’s head (Genesis 22:13).
Animal horns, used for fighting, protection, and securing dominance, became symbols of strength, power, and victory. Often, Scripture’s mention of a “horn” is as a literary symbol representing potency and power.
For example, in Daniel 7:7 and 24, the ten horns of Daniel’s fourth beast represent ten kings. In Psalm 75:10, God says, “I will cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.” In other words, the righteous will prevail, no matter how strong the wicked seem to be. In Jeremiah 48:25, “Moab’s horn is cut off” means that the strength of Moab is gone. The four horns in Zechariah 1:18–19 represent the powerful nations that attacked and scattered Israel.
Animal horns were also used as receptacles for oil (1 Samuel 16:1) or as a shofar trumpet (Joshua 6:5). The prayer in Psalm 92:10contains both a reference to oil and a figurative use of horn: “You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox; fine oils have been poured on me.”
In 1 Samuel 2:1 Hannah prays, “In the Lord, my horn is lifted high,” indicating the strength that will come from her having a child. In Luke 1:69 Zechariah praises God that “He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” In this case, the “horn of salvation” is a reference to Jesus Christ, the powerful deliverer and king who was soon to be born.
Another significant instance of the word horn in the Old Testament is in reference to the protrusion at each corner of the altar (Exodus 27:2). In worship, the horns of the altar were dabbed with blood to purify them and make atonement for sin (Leviticus 8:15; 4:6). The horns of the altar speak of the power of God’s salvation. That part of the altar also became a place of refuge and sanctuary for a fugitive (1 Kings 1:50).
We often see the horn in Scripture as a symbol of salvation.
Psalm 18:2 says,
"The LORD is my rock
and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock,
in whom I take refuge, my shield,
and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold.” In the New Testament,
Jesus is the horn of salvation
(Luke 1:68–69)
Thus, a title applied to Yahweh is also applied to Jesus;
they are both called
“the horn of salvation.”
The very name Jesus
means
“The Lord Is Salvation.”
The salvation Jesus offers is strong, triumphant, and powerful. Just like the horns on the altar offered refuge and atonement, Jesus offers clemency and cleansing through His death on the cross. However strong our spiritual foe,
the horn
of our salvation is
stronger still
Ephesians 6:17
instructs us to put on the whole armor of God and to “take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” When a soldier suited up for battle, the helmet was the last piece of armor to go on. It was the final act of readiness in preparation for combat. A helmet was vital for survival, protecting the brain, the command station for the rest of the body. If the head was badly damaged,
the rest of the armor would be of little use.
The assurance of salvation is our impenetrable defense against anything the enemy throws at us. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). The idea in this verse is that, as we prepare for Satan’s attacks, we must grab that helmet and buckle it on tightly. Salvation is not limited to a one-time act of the past or even a future hope. God’s salvation is an ongoing, eternal state that His children enjoy in the present. It is daily protection and deliverance from our sin nature and Satan’s schemes.
Because of the power of the cross, our enemy no longer has any hold on us (Romans 6:10; 8:2; 1 Corinthians 1:18). He knows that, but he also knows that most of God’s children do not know that—or, at least, they do not live as if they know. We must learn to keep our helmets buckled so that his fiery missiles do not lodge in our thoughts and set us on fire. Through this helmet of salvation, we can “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
There are several actions a believer can take to keep this helmet fastened and functioning:
1. Renew our minds. Our minds are battlefields. The outcomes of those battles determine the course of our lives. Romans 12:1–2instructs us to renew our minds by allowing the truth of God’s Word to wipe out anything contrary to it. Old ideas, opinions, and worldviews must be replaced. We must allow God’s truth to continually wash away the world’s filth, lies, and confusion from our minds and adopt God’s perspective.
2. Reject doubts that arise from circumstances. Human beings are sensory creatures. What we cannot fathom with our five senses, we tend to disregard. If we allow them to, circumstances may convince us that God does not really love us or that His Word is not true. It is impossible to have faith and doubt at the same time. God rewards our faith. With the helmet of salvation firmly in place, we can choose to believe what appears impossible (Hebrews 11:6; 1 Peter 1:8–9).
3. Keep an eternal perspective. When life crashes in around us, we must remember to look up. Our salvation is the most precious gift we have received. Keeping our eyes on that can help us weather life’s storms. We can choose to live our lives by the motto: “If it doesn’t have eternal significance, it’s not important” (see Matthew 6:20; 1 Corinthians 3:11–13).
4. Remember that victory is already accomplished. When we consider ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God” (Romans 6:11), we eliminate many of the opportunities Satan uses to entrap us. When choosing sin is no longer an option for us because we recognize ourselves to be “new creatures” (2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 3:9), we effectively cut off many avenues of failure.
5. Find all our hope in Him. Psalm 73:25 says, “Whom have I in heaven but You? Besides you, I desire nothing on earth.”
Our helmet
is most effective when we
treasure
what it represents.
The salvation
Jesus purchased for us cannot share
the place of importance in our hearts
with earthly things.
When pleasing the Lord is our supreme delight,
we eliminate many of
Satan’s lures and render his evil suggestions powerless.
We choose to guard our minds from
excessive worldly influence and instead think on
things that honor Christ (Philippians 4:8)
The whole of the Old Testament,
every book, points toward the Great Sacrifice that
was to come—that of Jesus’ sacrificial
giving of His own life on our behalf.
Leviticus 17:11
is the Old Testament’s central statement about the
significance of blood
in the
sacrificial system
God, speaking to Moses, declares:
“For the life of a creature is
in the blood,
and I have given it to you
to make atonement
for yourselves on the altar;
it is the blood that makes atonement
for one’s life.”
A “sacrifice” is defined as the offering up of something precious for a cause or a reason. Making atonement is satisfying someone or something for an offense committed. The Leviticus verse can be read more clearly now: God said, “I have given it to you (the creature’s life, which is in its blood) to make atonement for yourselves (covering the offense you have committed against Me).” In other words, those who are covered by the blood sacrifice are set free from the consequences of sin.
Of course, the Israelites did not know of Jesus per se, or how He would die on their behalf and then rise again, but they did believe God would be sending them a Savior. All of the many, many blood sacrifices seen throughout the Old Testament were foreshadowing the true, once-for-all-time sacrifice to come so that the Israelites would never forget that, without the blood, there is no forgiveness. This shedding of blood is a substitutionary act. Therefore, the last clause of Leviticus 17:11 could be read either “the blood ‘makes atonement’ at the cost of the life” (i.e., the animal’s life) or “makes atonement in the place of the life” (i.e., the sinner’s life, with Jesus Christ being the One giving life through His shed blood).
Hebrews 9:11-18 confirms the symbolism of blood as life and applies Leviticus 17:11 to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 12 states clearly that the Old Testament blood sacrifices were temporary and only atoned for sin partially and for a short time, hence the need to repeat the sacrifices yearly. But when Christ entered the Most Holy Place, He did so to offer His own blood once for all time, making future sacrifices unnecessary. This is what Jesus meant by His dying words on the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Never again would the blood of bulls and goats cleanse men from their sin. Only by accepting Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross for the remission of sins, can we stand before God covered in the righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
At the Last Supper, Jesus took a cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). Moments before, the Lord had broken the bread and given it to His disciples with the words, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (verse 19). With these symbolic actions Jesus instituted the ordinance of communion, or the Lord’s Table.
The “new covenant” that Jesus spoke of is in contrast to the Old Covenant, the conditional agreement that God had made with the Israelites through Moses. The Old Covenant established laws and ceremonies that separated the Jews from the other nations, defined sin, and showcased God’s provision of forgiveness through sacrifice. The New Covenant was predicted in Jeremiah 31:31–33.
The Old Covenant required blood sacrifices, but it could not provide a final sacrifice for sin. The Old Covenant required repeated, daily sacrifices of animals as a reminder of the people’s sin. But, as Scripture says, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Under the Old Covenant, the same inadequate sacrifices were constantly repeated. For every sin, the process was replicated, day after day, month after month, year after year. The Old Covenant never provided a full, complete sacrifice for sin. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second” (Hebrews 8:7, ESV).
Jesus came to establish a “better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22), a “new covenant” that Jesus said was in His blood. Jesus shed His blood on the cross to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29) and ratify the new covenant between God and man. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the cup and said to His disciples, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27–28). By “this cup,” Jesus referred, by metonymy, to the contents of the cup, which was the “fruit of the vine” (Mark 14:25). This was representative of Christ’s blood. Jesus gave His disciples the cup, infusing it with new meaning, and told them drinking it was to be a memorial of His death: it was to be drunk “in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25). Now, “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (verse 26).
The New Covenant
is based on faith in the
shed blood of Christ
to take away sin,
not on repeated sacrifices
or any other kind of work
(see Ephesians 2:8–9)
Because Jesus is the
holy Lamb of God,
His one-time sacrifice
is sufficient to atone for the sins
of all who believe in Him.
We “partake” of Jesus
by coming to Him in faith
(John 1:12),
trusting that His shed blood
(and broken body)
is sufficient to pay for our sins.
The elements of bread and wine
commemorate
His death and the shedding of His blood
we affirm
our faith and fellowship in Christ
My Husband is an EIGHT year US
Army veteran,
He Served
Two
Iraq tours and
Seven war zone countries
He's slept in ditches in the
RAIN,
been attacked by DESERT creatures,
Im Proud and Appreciative
I AM
however, thoroughly Anti Gun
(Outside of military use)
Always have been
Generations of military service,
Never guns in the Home
The Time has come,
I lost the
TWELVE year battle,
It's been a Long Road,
I fought the good fight
He's buying our 12 year old
Son
a B-B 'gun and I can't stop him
Pray for Me as I Cry us a
River
The horn of salvation
is mentioned several times
in the Bible,
but what does this expression mean?
What does salvation have to do
with a horn?
In the Old Testament,
the word horn signifies many
Of course,
one usage of horn was to refer to a pointed bony structure growing out of an animal’s head (Genesis 22:13).
Animal horns, used for fighting, protection, and securing dominance, became symbols of strength, power, and victory. Often, Scripture’s mention of a “horn” is as a literary symbol representing potency and power.
For example, in Daniel 7:7 and 24, the ten horns of Daniel’s fourth beast represent ten kings. In Psalm 75:10, God says, “I will cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.” In other words, the righteous will prevail, no matter how strong the wicked seem to be. In Jeremiah 48:25, “Moab’s horn is cut off” means that the strength of Moab is gone. The four horns in Zechariah 1:18–19 represent the powerful nations that attacked and scattered Israel.
Animal horns were also used as receptacles for oil (1 Samuel 16:1) or as a shofar trumpet (Joshua 6:5). The prayer in Psalm 92:10contains both a reference to oil and a figurative use of horn: “You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox; fine oils have been poured on me.”
In 1 Samuel 2:1 Hannah prays, “In the Lord, my horn is lifted high,” indicating the strength that will come from her having a child. In Luke 1:69 Zechariah praises God that “He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” In this case, the “horn of salvation” is a reference to Jesus Christ, the powerful deliverer and king who was soon to be born.
Another significant instance of the word horn in the Old Testament is in reference to the protrusion at each corner of the altar (Exodus 27:2). In worship, the horns of the altar were dabbed with blood to purify them and make atonement for sin (Leviticus 8:15; 4:6). The horns of the altar speak of the power of God’s salvation. That part of the altar also became a place of refuge and sanctuary for a fugitive (1 Kings 1:50).
We often see the horn in Scripture as a symbol of salvation.
Psalm 18:2 says,
"The LORD is my rock
and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock,
in whom I take refuge, my shield,
and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold.” In the New Testament,
Jesus is the horn of salvation
(Luke 1:68–69)
Thus, a title applied to Yahweh is also applied to Jesus;
they are both called
“the horn of salvation.”
The very name Jesus
means
“The Lord Is Salvation.”
The salvation Jesus offers is strong, triumphant, and powerful. Just like the horns on the altar offered refuge and atonement, Jesus offers clemency and cleansing through His death on the cross. However strong our spiritual foe,
the horn
of our salvation is
stronger still
Ephesians 6:17
instructs us to put on the whole armor of God and to “take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” When a soldier suited up for battle, the helmet was the last piece of armor to go on. It was the final act of readiness in preparation for combat. A helmet was vital for survival, protecting the brain, the command station for the rest of the body. If the head was badly damaged,
the rest of the armor would be of little use.
The assurance of salvation is our impenetrable defense against anything the enemy throws at us. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). The idea in this verse is that, as we prepare for Satan’s attacks, we must grab that helmet and buckle it on tightly. Salvation is not limited to a one-time act of the past or even a future hope. God’s salvation is an ongoing, eternal state that His children enjoy in the present. It is daily protection and deliverance from our sin nature and Satan’s schemes.
Because of the power of the cross, our enemy no longer has any hold on us (Romans 6:10; 8:2; 1 Corinthians 1:18). He knows that, but he also knows that most of God’s children do not know that—or, at least, they do not live as if they know. We must learn to keep our helmets buckled so that his fiery missiles do not lodge in our thoughts and set us on fire. Through this helmet of salvation, we can “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
There are several actions a believer can take to keep this helmet fastened and functioning:
1. Renew our minds. Our minds are battlefields. The outcomes of those battles determine the course of our lives. Romans 12:1–2instructs us to renew our minds by allowing the truth of God’s Word to wipe out anything contrary to it. Old ideas, opinions, and worldviews must be replaced. We must allow God’s truth to continually wash away the world’s filth, lies, and confusion from our minds and adopt God’s perspective.
2. Reject doubts that arise from circumstances. Human beings are sensory creatures. What we cannot fathom with our five senses, we tend to disregard. If we allow them to, circumstances may convince us that God does not really love us or that His Word is not true. It is impossible to have faith and doubt at the same time. God rewards our faith. With the helmet of salvation firmly in place, we can choose to believe what appears impossible (Hebrews 11:6; 1 Peter 1:8–9).
3. Keep an eternal perspective. When life crashes in around us, we must remember to look up. Our salvation is the most precious gift we have received. Keeping our eyes on that can help us weather life’s storms. We can choose to live our lives by the motto: “If it doesn’t have eternal significance, it’s not important” (see Matthew 6:20; 1 Corinthians 3:11–13).
4. Remember that victory is already accomplished. When we consider ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God” (Romans 6:11), we eliminate many of the opportunities Satan uses to entrap us. When choosing sin is no longer an option for us because we recognize ourselves to be “new creatures” (2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 3:9), we effectively cut off many avenues of failure.
5. Find all our hope in Him. Psalm 73:25 says, “Whom have I in heaven but You? Besides you, I desire nothing on earth.”
Our helmet
is most effective when we
treasure
what it represents.
The salvation
Jesus purchased for us cannot share
the place of importance in our hearts
with earthly things.
When pleasing the Lord is our supreme delight,
we eliminate many of
Satan’s lures and render his evil suggestions powerless.
We choose to guard our minds from
excessive worldly influence and instead think on
things that honor Christ (Philippians 4:8)
The whole of the Old Testament,
every book, points toward the Great Sacrifice that
was to come—that of Jesus’ sacrificial
giving of His own life on our behalf.
Leviticus 17:11
is the Old Testament’s central statement about the
significance of blood
in the
sacrificial system
God, speaking to Moses, declares:
“For the life of a creature is
in the blood,
and I have given it to you
to make atonement
for yourselves on the altar;
it is the blood that makes atonement
for one’s life.”
A “sacrifice” is defined as the offering up of something precious for a cause or a reason. Making atonement is satisfying someone or something for an offense committed. The Leviticus verse can be read more clearly now: God said, “I have given it to you (the creature’s life, which is in its blood) to make atonement for yourselves (covering the offense you have committed against Me).” In other words, those who are covered by the blood sacrifice are set free from the consequences of sin.
Of course, the Israelites did not know of Jesus per se, or how He would die on their behalf and then rise again, but they did believe God would be sending them a Savior. All of the many, many blood sacrifices seen throughout the Old Testament were foreshadowing the true, once-for-all-time sacrifice to come so that the Israelites would never forget that, without the blood, there is no forgiveness. This shedding of blood is a substitutionary act. Therefore, the last clause of Leviticus 17:11 could be read either “the blood ‘makes atonement’ at the cost of the life” (i.e., the animal’s life) or “makes atonement in the place of the life” (i.e., the sinner’s life, with Jesus Christ being the One giving life through His shed blood).
Hebrews 9:11-18 confirms the symbolism of blood as life and applies Leviticus 17:11 to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 12 states clearly that the Old Testament blood sacrifices were temporary and only atoned for sin partially and for a short time, hence the need to repeat the sacrifices yearly. But when Christ entered the Most Holy Place, He did so to offer His own blood once for all time, making future sacrifices unnecessary. This is what Jesus meant by His dying words on the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Never again would the blood of bulls and goats cleanse men from their sin. Only by accepting Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross for the remission of sins, can we stand before God covered in the righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
At the Last Supper, Jesus took a cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). Moments before, the Lord had broken the bread and given it to His disciples with the words, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (verse 19). With these symbolic actions Jesus instituted the ordinance of communion, or the Lord’s Table.
The “new covenant” that Jesus spoke of is in contrast to the Old Covenant, the conditional agreement that God had made with the Israelites through Moses. The Old Covenant established laws and ceremonies that separated the Jews from the other nations, defined sin, and showcased God’s provision of forgiveness through sacrifice. The New Covenant was predicted in Jeremiah 31:31–33.
The Old Covenant required blood sacrifices, but it could not provide a final sacrifice for sin. The Old Covenant required repeated, daily sacrifices of animals as a reminder of the people’s sin. But, as Scripture says, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Under the Old Covenant, the same inadequate sacrifices were constantly repeated. For every sin, the process was replicated, day after day, month after month, year after year. The Old Covenant never provided a full, complete sacrifice for sin. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second” (Hebrews 8:7, ESV).
Jesus came to establish a “better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22), a “new covenant” that Jesus said was in His blood. Jesus shed His blood on the cross to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29) and ratify the new covenant between God and man. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the cup and said to His disciples, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27–28). By “this cup,” Jesus referred, by metonymy, to the contents of the cup, which was the “fruit of the vine” (Mark 14:25). This was representative of Christ’s blood. Jesus gave His disciples the cup, infusing it with new meaning, and told them drinking it was to be a memorial of His death: it was to be drunk “in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25). Now, “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (verse 26).
The New Covenant
is based on faith in the
shed blood of Christ
to take away sin,
not on repeated sacrifices
or any other kind of work
(see Ephesians 2:8–9)
Because Jesus is the
holy Lamb of God,
His one-time sacrifice
is sufficient to atone for the sins
of all who believe in Him.
We “partake” of Jesus
by coming to Him in faith
(John 1:12),
trusting that His shed blood
(and broken body)
is sufficient to pay for our sins.
The elements of bread and wine
commemorate
His death and the shedding of His blood
we affirm
our faith and fellowship in Christ
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