A Devotional for Wednesday October 16 from the Desk of John Bunyan
"Delivered from the Wrath to Come"
“[A]nd . . . [we] wait for his Son from Heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come”
I Thessalonians 1: 10.
We are saved from all punishment in hell fire by the death of Christ. Jesus has “delivered us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1: 10) So that as to this great punishment, God for his sake has forgiven us all trespasses. (Colossian 2: 13) But we are being translated from being slaves of Satan to be sons of God. God reserves yet this liberty in his hand, to chastise us if we offend as a father chastises his son (Deuteronomy 8: 5) But this chastisement is not in legal wrath but in fatherly affection. Not to destroy us but that still we might be made to get advantage thereby, even be made partakers of his holiness. This is, that we might “not be condemned with the world” (Hebrews 12: 5-11, 1 Corinthians 11: 32) [Further,] There do . . . many things happen betwixt or between the cup and the lip [when we drink]. Many things attempt to overthrow the work of God and to cause that we should perish through our weakness. Notwithstanding the price that hath by Christ been paid for us. But what says the Scripture? “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8: 35-39).
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