Saved from What?

  

 

Oh, that’s an easy one!

Saved from sins

And you can take your Bible

And inquire within.

 

For he shall save his people

From their sins-

Matthew chapter 1 verse 21

As sharp as a pin!

 

But there is much more,

I can assure you

And it concerns all of his people

Including me and you.

 

Sin brought separation

Between God and us

And therefore, God sent His Son,

The sinless Jesus.

 

 

 

Upon His own Son

God poured out His wrath

And made him a public spectacle

To make a path.

 

It was for our sins

That Jesus was crucified,

Yes, it was on account of our sins

He suffered and died.

 

It should have been us

Crucified on that cross,

We should have been the ones

Suffering the loss.

 

So, saved from what?

I will ask you again

And you will need to re-examine

Your original claim.

 

 

 

It’s far more, I assure you,

Much more than our sins-

God actually sent his Son, Jesus,

To save us from Him.

 

God, Himself, I mean,

From His divine judgment,

He poured out on His Son, Jesus

Whom He sent.

 

Expressed another way,

It’s the wrath of a just God

Who has zero tolerance for sin

We make light and small.

 

 

 

Enemies of a Holy God,

That’s what we had become

And the only peace that could be had

Was through His Son.

 

Mankind had no desire

To initiate such peace with God

But rather, from Adam's historic fall,

Man had declared war.

 

Thus, God is the initiator

Of the peace shown in Romans 5

And it's as a result of God’s grace

By which we survive.

 

So, saved from what?

I am forced to reiterate,

Not only sin, but from God’s wrath,

The sinner’s fate.

 

Romans 5:1

 

Therefore,

Being justified by faith,

We have peace with God

Through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

Saved from God’s wrath

Culminating in divine judgment

But poured out upon His righteous Son

Whom God Himself sent.

 

From His righteous wrath

Only God could protect us

And His expression of amazing grace

Was sent through Jesus.

 

From justice to mercy,

From mercy to amazing grace,

Through the resurrection and the life

Death has been displaced.  

 

Stewart Russell © July 30, 2026

 

Seen in the Old Testament

 

 

My wife was barren

And we had not a child,

In the day that we lived

She was greatly despised.

 

But all that would change

When the angel appeared

Though for my wife

It was particularly weird.

 

She related it to me

What the man of God told,

To us having a child

Would be a joy to behold.

 

So, I intreated the Lord,

Let the man come again

And he answered my prayer,

It was not in vain.

 

I inquired of him

How we should order the child,

His instructions were precise

And we willingly complied.

 

I invited him to lunch

Which he politely refused

Then I asked him his name

But he was none too enthused.

 

He asked why I should know

Seeing it was a secret

So, I offered up a burnt offering

To show my respect.

What I saw next

Caused us to fall to the ground,

The man ascended in the flame

And was no longer around.

 

With that I knew

It was the angel of the Lord

“We shall surely die,” I said,

“For we had seen God.”

 

My wife disagreed

Since the offering was received,

And the things he had told us

We definitely believed.

 

We saw him too

We knew it was the Lord,

Face to face we saw him

Indeed, it was God.

 

In the form of His Son

As the Lord, Jesus Christ,

He appeared on to us

And that really sufficed.

 

One of the many times

In the Old Testament

We were privileged to see the Lord

And we were content.

 

If a man looks on God’s face

He would surely die

But Jesus is the firmament,

On him we can rely.

 

“If a man has seen me,

He has seen the Father.”

These words of Jesus convey

No need to bother.

 

 

Even as the firmament

Protects us from the sun

We are shielded from God’s wrath

Because of His Son.

 

They saw him too

Moses, Manoah and others,

And when they did

They also saw the Father.

 

Stewart Russell © February 2020

 

Unconditional for Whom?

 

 

 

How oft have you heard

God loves unconditionally

Meaning of course,

You, me and everybody?

 

Sinner and saint

The unsaved and saved

And it doesn’t really matter

How any of us behave.

 

Contrite and unrepentant

Believer and atheist,

It doesn’t matter what we do

We're all on God's list.

 

God loves the sinner

But He hates the sin

And he loves us whether or not

We come to Him.

 

Think of the signal

Such a statement sends

And understand, my friends,

God does not pretend.

 

Does he love all the same?

I would think not

But Satan wants us to think so

For he is a sly old fox.

 

God loves the world

And this we cannot deny

But not like he loves His Son

Whom it crucified.

 

This love is not the same

Just like human beings show,

For their loved ones it’s different

From those they just know.

 

 

God loves the born-again

Just like He Loves His Son

And He extends this same love

To all who to Him come.

 

They become God’s children

By way of their rebirth

And this rebirth is in Christ Jesus

Whom God sent to the earth.

 

So that God loves these

Through His love for Jesus

And so, to those who are saved,

God’s love is a must.

 

God loves the sinner

But hates the sinner’s deeds

Yet the sinner will go to hell

However much he pleas.

 

 

That’s not unconditional

I hope you can see,

God will judge sinners and sin

Eventually!

 

What good would be His love

To those in hell?

What benefits would be theirs then?

If you know, pray tell.

 

God abhors ungodliness

And sin attracts His wrath

And the unrepentant is going to hell

In their own chartered craft.

 

Stewart Russell © January 20, 2022