December 29, a horrible destiny.

Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 1.10.

Do you remember the time you were lost as a child, or slipping over a precipice, or about to drown?

Then suddenly you were rescued. You held on for dear life. You trembled for what you almost lost.

You were happy. Oh, so happy and thankful, and you trembled with joy.

That's the way I feel at the end of the year about my rescue from God's wrath. All day

Christmas, we had a fire in the fireplace. Sometimes the coals were so hot that when I stoked it, my hand hurt.

I pulled back and shuddered at the horrendous thought of the wrath of God against sin in hell.

Oh, how unspeakably horrible that will be.

Christmas afternoon, I visited a woman who had been burned over 87% of her body.

She has been in the hospital since August.

My heart broke for her.

How wonderful it was to hold out hope to her from God's

word for a new body in the age to come. But I came away not only thinking about her pain in this life,

but also about the everlasting pain I have been saved from through Jesus.

Test my experience with me. Is this trembling joy a fitting way to end the year?

Paul was glad that Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come, 1st Thessalonians 1.10.

He warned that for those who do not obey the truth there will be wrath and fury, Romans

2 8.

And because of sexual immorality, impurity and covetousness, the wrath of God comes upon the

sons of disobedience. Ephesians 5, 6.

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