Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Lifeguard (11/09/06)
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TITLE: The Lifeguard of Grace | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ernest Seablom
11/15/06 -
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From any angle life on planet earth in the 21st Century is a very tenuous situation. The insane oil, and drugs, rich Muslim terrorists chanting death to Israel and America is chilling at the least. The ease of smuggling WMD laden cells into all nations to destroy all, makes the globe a potential dooms day bomb. The technology of chemical warfare, biological warfare, nuclear warheads and magnetic pulse with the sophisticated means of delivery to any point on earth drives any rational informed person to diligently consider the possibility of survival.
The descent into worldwide mass sin promoted by science, the media, the education system and corrupt human nature are posed in a squatting position waiting for the shattering boot of God to kick them to shivers. Is there any escape? Is there any lifeguard?
As in all hopeless extremities we have an inherent tendency to look beyond the reality of the crisis to some vital invisible unknown source for deliverance. The Psalmist said, “ My help comes from the Lord.”
My salvation is the result of one such event in the life of a World War II bomber pilot. His plane was hit and going down – all efforts to save it totally failed. In desperation this pagan pilot prayed, “Oh, God, if you are real and get me out of this, I will look into it.” The plane instantly straightened out and he got back to England. After the war was over he found Christ. He was instrumental in leading most of his family to Christ, including me, his nephew.
We continually hear ministers warning of eminent judgment upon the United States of America because of her waywardness. It is true. America is fatally wayward, murdering 48 million innocent unborn, having more homicides than a dozen other nations. Our nation is sinking into a godless socialist, communist future. What can the righteous do?
There are several things we should NOT do. We should not give up. The scheme of God for this age is to preach the Gospel. The truth still holds. He that believes shall be saved. The wicked world will continue until that shall happen – then shall the end come. The Gospel is a lifeguard to anyone who will believe. The Gospel is also a lifeguard to any nation whose citizens actively pursue world wide evangelistic missions.
We cannot compare the present age of grace with the Old Testament Law. God has the sin situation covered. Christ died a propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself – not imputing their trespasses to them, and he has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation.
God is dealing with the wretchedness of America and the world – not by law, that was done at the cross – but by grace and by the Gospel. The sin is so brazen, so rife, so widespread, so immeasurably wicked surely a holy God must do something.
Yes, God has done something that sin and Satan cannot phase. He has bulldozed sin into oblivion at the cross. The Bible, God’s holy Word, described it thus “where sin did abound grace did much more abound. Where sin did reign, now grace reigns”. God has held to that eternal proposition for almost 2,000 years.
Titus destroyed Jerusalem and a million Jews. Persecutions came upon the Christians. Apostasy struck Christendom: a Thirty year and a Hundred year war were fought for the faith, the inquisition tortured, mutilated and burned millions, the Crusades came and went killing a dozen armies and desecrating Jerusalem. The Ottoman Empire took over from Spain to Turkey for 800 years subjugating the Holy Land to Islam. Two World Wars came and went with its holocaust and millions upon millions were killed. Israel has been persecuted throughout.
God has restrained His hand from judgment. When the earth is finally reaped then God will settle the other factors with a second harvest – the grape harvest in which God’s wrath will at last be poured out on the unbelieving world (Revelation 14). Peter tells us “God is not slack concerning his promise but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come.”
Until then we have a lifeguard! Everything and everyone are preserved only by God’s grace, until salvation or death or the day of judgment.
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