Rescue

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,.." Colossians 1:13 (niv)

"..if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment." 2 Peter 2:9 (niv)

God makes a very great difference in his dealings with the godly and the wicked. When he saves his people from destruction, he delivers over his enemies to deserved ruin. The unjust has no share in the salvation God works out for the righteous. Yet, he does rescue us from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light, His Son!

But... There's another kind of rescue... Satan's!

Screwtape says to his nephew, Wormwood, "In modern Christian writings, though I see much (indeed more than I like) about Mammon, I see few of the old warnings about Worldly Vanities, the Choice of Friends, and the Value of Time. All that, your patient would probably classify as "Puritanism" - and may I remark in passing that the value we have given to that word is one of the really solid triumphs of the last hundred years? By it we rescue annually thousands of humans from temperature (spiritual warmth), chastity (purity in conduct and intention), and sobriety of life (straight-forward; right)."

What I am about to type rings extremely true to us all and our friends today. Peer pressure is evident today. We do just as much as we can to avoid an embarrassment; avoid being oddballs; and one of those, "Holier-than-thou" people.

"He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening; and contrariwise, to enjoy the bawdy and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a 'deeper', 'spiritual' world within him with they cannot understand. You see the idea - the worldly friends touch him on one side and the grocer on the other, and he is the complete, balanced, complex man who see round them all."

Here portrays two different worlds: Relationship with another Christian and relationship with worldly friends.

"Thus, being permanently treacherous to at least two sets of people, he will feel, instead of shame, a continual undercurrent of self-satisfaction."

Doesn't that happen to us all?? We're tempted to leave the faith for the pleasures of the world. We're tempted to trample the Son of God, Jesus, under our foot:

"How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?" Hebrews 10:29 (niv)

"Finally, if all else fails, you can persuade him, in defiance of conscience, to continue the new acquaintance on the ground that he is, in some unspecified way, doing these people 'good' by the mere fact of drinking their cocktails and laughing at their jokes, and that to cease to do would be 'priggish', 'intolerant', and (of course) 'Puritanical'."

In other words, once we behave like the world, Christ is known no more! Light is diffused! Salt is kept in the saltshaker.

Have you been rescued into His Kingdom? That, I pray!!