June 3

Did you see it? The Old Testament teems with imagery of the salvation we find in Christ alone!

In todays reading of 2 Chronicles 20, listen to the prayer King Jehoshaphat prayer...

"O Lord, God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty; no one can stand against you! O our God, did you not drive out those who lived in this land when your people Israel arrived? And did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham? Your people settled here and built this Temple to honor your name. They said, Whenever we are faced with any calamity such as war, plague, or famine, we can come to stand in your presence before this Temple where your name is honored. We can cry out to you to save us, and you will hear us and rescue us."

Here we find the spiritual predicament of all humanity. Their political state mirrors our spiritual condition, helpless apart from divine intervention. Paul writes in Romans 7:24-25, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-

through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

And as we continue reading in the narrative of the battle between King Jehoshaphat's soldiers and the invading armies, we find that God supernaturally intervenes so that Judah's army doesn't even pull a sword from its sheath! Paul writing again, this time in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not of works, so that no one can boast."

And finally, we find that the armies of Judah spent 3 days gathering the plunder left behind by the invading army. So too as Jesus was in the tomb for 3 days, so that we might gather the greatest plunder the world could possibly ever receive, the spoils of the battle from an eternal realm, eternal life! Paul continues in both of the following... Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." And 1 Corinthians 15:54b-55, "...Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?"

We finish with 1 John 5:13, by the Apostle John, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."

Do you?

Pastor Fred