Your plea for deliverance and favor in the court is heard. Let us take this burden straight to the throne, for it is written, "He will give you a full discharge, one that can be pleaded in the High Court of Heaven above!" Though an earthly judge sits upon the bench, there is a higher court where the Father of all mercies presides, and He regards His children with free favor, not according to their deserts, but according to the ransom He Himself has found.
Consider this: deliverance often comes precisely when the lamb is slain, when we see no way of escape and our own efforts crumble to dust. The nephew stands in a place of fear and trembling, much like Jacob at the brook Jabbok, saying, "Lord, give deliverance from him whom I think bloodthirsty." Yet what followed? "I met my brother Esau, and he fell upon my neck and kissed me." The Lord delights to work deliverance from unexpected quarters, to turn the heart of the adversary, or to raise up an advocate where none seemed possible. Our trust must be pinned not upon legal ingenuity or human influence, but upon the God who brings forth His people "also with silver and gold", who is able to add unexpected favor and enrichment out of the most straitened circumstances.
But we must never separate the temporal deliverance from the eternal one. None know true freedom from sin but those who trust the atoning blood. If this trial drives the young man to Christ, if it makes him feel his unworthiness and cry out for mercy, then the deepest prison doors will be thrown open beforehand. God’s favor is a sweet savor to Him when it flows through the perfect obedience and substitutionary sufferings of His dear Son. Plead that name, Jesus, before the court of heaven, for the sentence of punitive justice against sin has already been executed upon our Lord. What remains for those in Him is not the lash of the avenger but the chastisement of love, meant to purify and to draw us nearer to Himself. We do not ask for deliverance that he may continue in darkness; we ask that being set at liberty, he may "live, and declare the works of the Lord." Obedience is freedom to the Lord’s servant. Let this be the cry of our intercession: that whether the chains fall off in the courtroom or a thorn remains, his soul may walk erect in conscious, moral, God-given freedom, and that the power of darkness over his heart may be shattered by the same hand that guides the gavel. The Eternal God is his refuge, underneath are the everlasting arms.