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Thursday, June 5, 2014

Pastoral Ponderings ~ A Lingering Man, a Merciful God, and the Sealed Servants

“Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees,
until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”[1]

          Here’s how God ministered to me today. It began in Revelation 7 where I continue to meditate on the meaning of God sealing the 144,000. The picture? That God saves his people prior to executing judgment on the wicked.
          This is what happened with Noah, as he and his family were delivered from the worldwide flood. It also is what happened with Lot, nephew to Abraham.[2]
          When God sent his angels to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, his plan of action had to include how to be faithful to Lot. He would do this by delivering Lot out of Sodom prior to pouring out fire from heaven on the wicked cities. Our story picks up with the angels urging Lot by saying, “‘Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.’”[3]
          Now, with all the urgency of the situation, and the certainty of God’s judgment on the cities, how would you have responded to a couple of angels telling you to get outta there? For whatever reason, Lot’s response was described as, “But he lingered.” Whether this was because he was having difficulty letting go of his place in the world, or his concern for his sons-in-law who wouldn’t join them,[4] we are not told. The point is that the angels, speaking as God’s ambassadors, told him to leave immediately, and he lingered.
          Now the question is not what we would do if angels told us to hurry out of Sodom, but what God would do if we responded by lingering. Think about it. God gives an order, a command, and we are shocked (or maybe not) to find our hearts lingering where we are. God calls us out of the world, and we find ourselves lingering. God calls us to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart”,[5] and we find our hearts lingering instead of fleeing, pondering the things that must be left behind rather than pursuing the things that are ahead. What does God do at such times?
          Here is a wonderful encouragement: “So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.[6] Here is the grace and mercy of God that, when we linger over our place in the world, a world that is as much under the impending judgment of God by fire as Sodom and Gomorrah were in that day,[7] God will seize us by the hand, “the LORD being merciful” to us.
          This is what stood out so strongly. Because it was God’s intention to save Lot, even Lot’s lingering in his place would not stop God from fulfilling his work. He will take hold of us, bend our wills to his, and overpower our heels-dug-in posture with his great and gracious strength, all because his mercy compels him to save us from the coming wrath.[8]
          I was so encouraged to see this picture of God’s angels doing something a certain way because the LORD was merciful to Lot. This has to be included in what we see in Revelation 7 when God has the earth surrounded by his angels who are holding back the elements before they inflict terrible harm on the earth. Before this cataclysmic event takes place, all God’s servants are sealed, set apart, secured as his, readied for the coming of the Lord.
          Thankfully, when Jesus comes, the angels will gather his elect from every part of the earth,[9] not missing one, not depending on us to be ready, or to have our eyes looking to the sky for the Lord’s return. We are gathered as the elect, not the perfect, not the good, not the best-behaved, not the cream of the crop. We are simply the elect, the ones God had chosen for himself, and so we are sealed as his forever.
          I believe that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will humble us with his mercy. We will all find that we were lingering over worldly things far too much, struggling to give up our comforts, sometimes struggling against the difficulties brought on by our allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. Somewhere there will be children of God snatched from the midst of some battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil, suddenly lifted out of that last swing of the sword, in a twinkling of an eye meeting in the air with all the dead in Christ who were raised first.[10] Suddenly we will know that it is time, the moment has arrived, we are going home, we are entering into the joy of our master, hearing the underserved exclamation of, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!” [11]
          Suddenly we will know the sound of God’s voice jubilantly rejoicing over his children with singing.[12] Suddenly we will know the fullness of our joy unspeakable and full of glory.[13] God’s mercy will shine like the sun at noonday, overwhelming us with the eternal pleasures that are at his right hand, and the fullness of joy that is ours forevermore.
          This is the gift of grace this morning, that, before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he took a lingering man “by the hand” (not the throat, hair, nose, ears), “brought him out”, and “set him outside the city,” where he belonged in the first place.
          The next thing that happened is that Lot negotiated a place for him and his family to run to for safety, the angels made an agreement, and then presented this declaration, Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.”[14]
          This is where my heart jumped inside me with the joy of another interwoven theme of Scripture. This is the ring of the symbols (cymbals?) of Revelation 7. The same God who sent angels to urge Lot to quickly escape from Sodom, so ordering his instructions to the angels that they could do nothing until Lot arrived in that city safely, is the one who seals his servants before his angels unleash harm upon the earth.
          While there are innumerable interpretations of the 144,000, the seal on their foreheads, and the winds the angels are holding back, one thing has become very clear: the sealing of the 144,000 is one more reminder that God “can do nothing till…” It is not that it is impossible for him to do something destructive earlier, but that his justice towards his children absolutely demands that he fulfill all his self-imposed, love-imposed, obligations to them before he executes justice on the lost.
          Today’s lesson settles into two parts that help me appreciate the sealing of the 144,000 all the more happily. The first part is that God’s mercy will take a lingering man by the hand and lead him to safety before justice is meted out on the wicked. The second part is that his angels cannot release the harming-winds on the earth until God has made every one of his servants secure in the salvation he has provided through the Lord Jesus Christ.
          In application, if you find that this picture of someone “lingering” in Sodom when told to escape strikes your heart with something going on in your life, reach out your hand in humble submission to the Holy Spirit and yield to him wherever he leads you. God is merciful, and is working to lead you to safety in his Son.
          Secondly, since the 144,000 represent God’s servants in some way, take that picture as one more reminder that God cannot bring harm to the earth while the number of his chosen ones has not reached fulfillment. There is coming a day when whatever God meant by that number will add up in the divine equation. Today he calls you to hide yourself safely in Christ, and to see whom you can bring along. The day is coming. Mercy waits for the full number to enter the kingdom.
          God’s mercy for a lingering man, and his exhortation to flee the world, the flesh, and the devil, have a certain harmony to them. May the songs of the kingdom bring us to keep in step with the tempo of the heavenly Trio, and their choir of angels who continue to sing through the pages of God’s word.

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)




[1] Revelation 7:3
[2] See the full story in Genesis 19
[3] Genesis 19:15-16
[4] Genesis 19:14
[5] II Timothy 2:22
[6] Genesis 19:16
[7][7] II Peter 3:7
[8] Jude 1:17-23 shows he will use the church to do this.
[9] Matthew 24:29-31
[10] I Thessalonians 4:13-18; I Corinthians 15:50-58
[11] Matthew 25:21,23; Luke 19:17
[12] Zephaniah 3:17
[13] I Peter 1:8
[14] Genesis 19:22

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