God’s Word for You
Psalm 141:9-10 Pass by in safety
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, August 10, 2025
9 Keep me from the snares they have laid for me,
from the traps set by evildoers.
10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
while I pass by in safety.
What kinds of snares are laid for us? There are snares of the devil, snares of the world, and snares even from our sinful flesh—our fallen human nature. All of these qualify as evildoers, but David’s prayer, that they would fall into their own nets, must be directed mostly at the evildoers of the world, since Satan has already fallen into his judgment, and we would pray that God would spare our flesh from being judged one way and our spirits being judged another. Such a thing cannot be done; our flesh will rise purified and changed on the Last Day “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:52) and our souls will once again inhabit our flesh, but without sin, to be carried to heaven.
What are the snares of the devil? Since the fall of man, Satan has provided the external influence upon mankind to sin, to wander away from God’s will and abandon God’s holy way. But his true motive is not only to get people to sin, for Jesus warns us: “He has been a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). He wants to kill us, as do his demons (Mark 9:22), while we are caught in sin and without repentance, so that he will cause us to be condemned even as he is condemned. This is why he despises the comfort God gives to Christians through baptism, and he has worked hard to upset the meaning of baptism over the centuries, so that today it is even withheld from many children with no Scriptural basis at all. “Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said, “and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Luke 18:16), and “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15).
What are the snares of the world? The snares of the world are constantly shifting and changing. Trends in music, art, popular culture, makeup, the habits of our neighbors and friends, and even the design of the clothes we wear work on us all wear down our resistance to sin. And the sinful nature works alongside the world’s temptations, so that even the existence of rules and laws causes us to desire what is forbidden. This makes the devil roll back on his heels and roar with laughter. For as Paul says, it even applies to the Law of God, which is by definition perfect and good. And yet, “I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet’” (Romans 7:7). So the world pressures us in every way to sin, and so much so that we can divide actual sins into two classes: intentional sins, and unintentional sins. The ancients embraced paganism not long after their grandparents had stepped off the ark. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). They sinned intentionally knowing full well who the true God was, but deciding the way mankind does that they could know better and do better than God can know and do. But we also sin unintentionally, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do” (Romans 7:15). Yet being unintentional does not make the guilt or shame of a sin any less. Moses said, “When anyone sins unintentionally he does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands” (Leviticus 4:2). But by the mercy of God, there is atonement in Christ for all sins, intentional or unintentional.
What are the snares of our sinful flesh? According to our fallen sinful nature, we can only be children of God’s wrath. God imputes our sinful condition, passed down to us from Adam and Eve through our parents, as guilt. “We are by nature objects of God’s wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). “Because of your great wrath,’’ says the afflicted man, “you have picked me up and thrown me aside” (Psalm 102:10). This is because Adam stands not only as the physical head or beginning of the human race, but he is also the moral head of the race. His guilt is imputed to us all. For Paul says: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). So our flesh inclines or leans toward doing evil all the time. Caught in a moment of weakness, we can count on our flesh to draw us toward sin even if the devil has his hands clasped over his mouth, and even if the world is otherwise occupied. We will still be tempted with no outside force working on us at all.
Yet David finishes the Psalm with a quiet prayer, “while I pass by in safety.” The safety David has in mind is not just from the attacks and snares that the wicked had in store to take away his life, but from the attacks and snares of the devil, and of the world, and even from his own fallen, tempted, sinful human flesh. We have safety because we have Christ. His perfect life filled up all of the righteous living God demands of us, which is a perfect life from each one of us. We can’t do that, but Jesus did, and by putting our faith in him we have everything he did for us. His merits fill in the hugs gaping hole of disobedience on our record. And he also made himself the sacrifice that paid the atonement price of the sins we commit, intentional, unintentional, and even the stain of original sin we live with our whole lives through. He has given us everything we need, and so we pass by this world in safety, knowing we have a perfect place with him forever in Paradise.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.