Seize the Moment – Day 402
The Lord’s Compassionate Rescue!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, April 23.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 is the classic judgment story! It is a hard story for modern people to comprehend, but as you read the story in Genesis 18:17 – 19:29, you will see that even in the pouring out of His wrath, God is compassionate.
Listen to God’s rescue of Lot in Genesis 19:15-16,
When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city.
God sent His messengers to rescue Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family from the impending destruction. This is not the first time Lot had gotten himself into a bind because of his desire to live in Sodom. The Lord was compassionate both times, the first time through Abram’s rescue of him and the second time through angelic intervention.
Yet, even so, Lot hesitated to accept God’s rescue, just like so many people in Jesus’ day through today have hesitated to accept God’s compassionate rescue through Jesus Christ.
As Jesus prepared His disciples to live on mission, Jesus referenced this judgment story in Matthew 10:14-15, “Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city” (cf. Matthew 11:20-24).
Jesus is God’s compassionate rescue from the coming wrath.
Seize the moment and turn to God today. Put your faith in Jesus, “who rescues us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).