Provoking The Lord

The Olympics, the NFL half-time show, the latest Grammy Awards, all bring the warning of God’s Word to mind… “Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of His glory. The show of their faces witness against them; they declare their sin as Sodom; they hide it not. Woe to their soul!” (Isaiah 3:8,9).

If ever a world was ripe for judgment, it is ours. Yet even in the midst of this open contempt for God, He has a message for those who love Him in the next verses, “Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with them…”

Deliverance from God’s Day of Wrath, coming on this world, is the promise of the Cross to all who have trusted Christ… “Therefore, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9).

The Lord gave our world two previous examples by which to be forewarned… “God spared not the old world, but saved Noah… a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example to those afterwards who live ungodly.”

Yet, “He delivered righteous Lot, vexed with the filthy conduct of the wicked. (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds). The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of testing, and to reserve the unjust for the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Peter 2:5-9).

This is our time to boldly preach the Cross of Rescue, using Jesus’ own words… “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

(Devotional by Lisa Cataford)