Advent Rescues
God was powerfully at work even during the darkest, bleakest period of Israel’s history. The book of Daniel records some of the amazing things God did while Israel was captive in a foreign nation. Some of his purposes in the Exile were to reprove sin, refine faith, rescue from danger, reach the world, and reveal the future. There is a real sense that all of us, like Daniel, are in captivity, exiled from Eden, strangers in a foreign land and far from our true home. Yet God is at work in our lives with the same objectives as we see in the book of Daniel.
Though God may often seem absent to us, he is conspicuously present in our lives to help us. He is our ever-present help in trouble. We will journey through the Book of Esther, and though God is never mentioned directly, his fingerprints are all over this remarkable story of rescue. From this story and especially from the ultimate rescue of Christ the Savior, our faith will be strengthened and our worship increased.
Ever feel like you need to be rescued from guilt, shame, or other problems? From where do we look for answers? God is both a righteous judge and a merciful rescuer, and we know this well through the coming of his Son, Jesus our Savior. In addition, throughout history God has repeatedly shown himself to deliver his people from judgment and death. This Sunday we’ll look at the shocking judgment of the Flood and the merciful rescue of one man and his family, an important picture of the Advent of Jesus Christ.