AP

1 Chronicles 9:1 All Israel was listed in the genealogies recorded in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. They were taken captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. 

What a wonderful promise is embedded in this verse!  God’s people were deported and submitted to hardship for 70 years in Babylon as punishment for their disobedience and their covenant unfaithfulness.  To all outward appearances God was rejecting them and disowning them.  That was certainly the interpretation the godless world put on their captivity, and it was certainly how many of them felt!  But here we are reminded that in spite of what was happening God knew them all by name, as the verses that follow show.  They were struggling with where their sovereign God was and what he was doing in their lives, but they knew that he knew who and where they were, which is what really mattered.  Job expressed a similar feeling in the depths of his despair: “if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.  But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:8-10)

The Risen Lord Jesus revealed through John in Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 the fact that, from all eternity, God has had recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life the names of all those who belong to him.  I love the words of Toplady’s old hymn, ‘A debtor to mercy alone’, especially the last 2 verses: “Eternity will not erase my name from the palms of his hands; in marks of indelible grace impressed on his heart it remains.  Yes, I to the end shall endure, as sure as the promise is given; more happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven.”  How great is the comfort of God’s amazing, indelible grace!

Sadly, those who do not see the thread of the doctrine of God’s grace that runs through the whole of Scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, consider it the height of arrogance for us to have absolute assurance of salvation, not realising that we only have this assurance because we know it is due to his work alone in us that qualifies us for heaven, and our assurance therefore is not earned by our work for him.  It is on this basis that he Apostle Paul could write confidently to the beiievers in the fledgling church in Rome: “What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39)

– Bruce Christian