Missing the Storm
Last Lord’s Day, the long stretch of warm sunshine threatened to end in a loud thunderstorm and heavy downpour. Sure enough, it came, but the chapel was spared. Folk coming from Yorkshire bemoaned the flooded roads and obstructed vision, so torrential were the drops. People coming from Clitheroe, in the opposite direction, said likewise. The storm had evidently missed us, though the thundery peals and sheet flashes were almost constant. I was on my bicycle that night and was grateful that the Lord kept me dry.
I often preach that the Christian is not exempted from trials and difficulties; nay, we often get more of them. Yet there is also a sense in which the Lord does spare us much of life’s calamity. The terrors of the end times will be shortened ‘for the sake of the elect’, and His promise not to make us endure more than we can bear could be an assurance of additional strength, or a reduction in the given difficulty, or both.
As the world and the nations gravitate towards the final great rebellion and judgement, the Church, though cruelly persecuted, will somehow be saved from the chaos. Whether we be spirited away to heaven or safely preserved on the earth, we shall, like Noah’s family, get home safe and dry. Rest assured, God will redirect the storm, or He shall give you sufficient shelter and grace to withstand it.
...When once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 3:20-21
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