Rescue from Death

UV 4141/10000 Rescue from Death O Lord, You have brought my life up from Sheol ( the nether world, the place of the dead); You have kept me alive, so that I would not go down to the pit ( grave). Psalm 30 v 3 Escape from premature or untimely death comes from the Lord. It is not as if we ourselves can escape but we are rescued by the hand of the Lord. It is been thirty years since the Lord spared my life in the human bomb assassination of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Psalm 30 ironically also records the reason why a man’s life is spared by the Lord- to praise Him, to declare His faithfulness to man. ( Psalm 30 v 9). We are taken to the very edge of life where human knowledge neither exists or works to realize that only the Lord could have saved us from such a calamity. The Lord lifts us up literally from the grave, the nether world, the place of the dead. He hears our cry for help and heals us of our pride, our sinfulness so that we lead godly lives, worthy of His calling and justifying His saving us. From the moment of so being saved providentially by the hand of the Lord, we will be so reverential that even at the very mention of the name of God, we will remember our debt to Him and offer spontaneous thanksgiving. We realize the truth of the scripture that says, “ His anger lasts for but a moment but His favour for a lifetime.” When all goes well for human beings, we tend to forget God and feel secure in our prosperity but the moment God hides His face for even a moment, we will be terrified. Once we recover from the trauma of suffering, our mourning will turn to joy and dancing and celebration of God’s grace and faithfulness to us proven in the very fact we are still living and well. Once we are saved from death by the Lord, we cannot be silent but we are filled with the joy of salvation that expresses itself in songs of praise to the Lord. We become living evidence for the existence of God and to attest that He is faithful and rewards our faith. Our scars remind us daily of the fact that the Lord has saved us. We are not ashamed to say so. We are also purged of the roots of evil in our human nature when we go through such life threatening experiences. We remain in our bodies so that we become embodiments of God’s truths and His love to the rest of mankind. We are divested of our mortal fears of death and instead, our confidence and trust in the Lord grows manifold.