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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
“Just as it was in the
days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were
eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah
entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”
“It was the same in the
days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and
building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven
and destroyed them all.”
Luke 17:26-29
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Anyone who knows me,
knows I am a huge sports fan. In fact, there aren’t too many sports I don’t
follow.
For me and others, the
spring season is a great time of year as many sports are getting started while
others are winding down with the playoffs and quest for championships. One such
sport is hockey and I think what has always captivated me about this particular
sport and the playoffs is that tied games at the end of regulation (three 20
minute periods in the case of hockey), go into what is called sudden death
overtime. These overtime periods are 20 minutes each and the two team will play
until the first goal is scored, the final goal of the game that will make one team
a winner and the other the defeated, defeated by what is known as a sudden
death goal because it immediately marks their demise in that particular game.
As we look to our
scripture passage today, we see Jesus speaking about a different sudden death situation,
one that has absolutely nothing to do with a hockey game or any other sporting
event for that matter, one that has much more at stake for those involved. Look
again at His words here:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of
the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in
marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed
them all.”
“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking,
buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and
sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.” Luke 17:26-29
Continuing a theme that
we saw Jesus addressing in yesterday’s devotion, “False Alarms,” we see our
Savior talking to His disciples and painting a scene of what His sudden return
might mean for the people of this world, a people who have already seen
glimpses of God’s judgment power through two specific Old Testament acts.
Think about the great
flood in the days of Noah. Nobody saw their demise coming. Noah diligently built
the ark in obedience to God’s calling while the general populace, the sinners
who had brought God to the point of judgment, were having a good old time,
eating and drinking and entering into marriage, never aware that the end was
near. Sudden death was right around the corner as the rains came and didn’t
cease until the entire world was flooded and everyone who was not on the ark
were destroyed.
The same lack of
awareness about coming judgment was on full display in the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah, the inhabitants of which had decided to immerse themselves in wicked,
lascivious living. Their indecent indiscretions placed them squarely in the
crosshairs of God’s wrath and while Lot was fleeing with his family, forewarned
of what was coming, the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah were carrying on
business as usual as if nothing were out of order in their trangressive
culture. They were “eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and
building when the skies rained down fire and sulfur from the hands of God,
obliterating everything and everyone. It was nothing more than sudden death of
the most horrific fashion.
Friends, the point Jesus
is trying to make is that when He returns, we will see the same scene play out.
Sinners who never felt it important to repent and seek salvation will reap the
fruits of their fatal decision in a blink of an eye, while they are carrying on
their lives as if nothing would ever happen to them. They will be eating and
drinking, laboring in their vocations, and buying and selling things along the
wide road that leads to destruction, the wide road that Jesus talks about in
Matthew, Chapter 7 (vv. 13-14) when sudden death comes their way.
Given this truth, if you
have not received Jesus as your personal Savior as you read this, I implore you
to do so right now. Don’t waste another moment placing yourself in danger of
sudden death when you can instead have the promise of eternal life.
If this devotion, driven
by the words of Jesus, hasn’t convinced you, I invite you to read the next two
devotions in this series over the next several days. One thing is for sure, you
can’t save yourself so you have no hope outside of committing yourself and your
life to Jesus.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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