Our Father Comes to the Rescue

A recent high profile rescue mission in Colombia has parallels to our situation as Christians still waiting our rescue. It sets the stage for out tenth and final loving act of our heavenly Father.

It’s the story of a 46 year old, French-Colombian politician who was held captive by Marxist rebels in a Colombian jungle for six long years. It serves as a parable for spiritual “aliens and strangers” in a foreign, hostile environment.

Some shaky video footage and an Internet news report told her compelling story: “Her hands bound crudely with plastic, Ingrid Betancourt, the most famous hostage in the world, gazes despondently at the ground before being guided aboard the Russian helicopter … ‘My heart broke because I did not want another transfer, another time in captivity,’ she recalled. Once again, it seemed, her captors had duped her. But in fact it was the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia who had been deceived, hustled into giving up their most prized possession. Operation Checkmate had been months in the planning. She was freed without a shot being fired or a drop of blood spilt.”

Like our fallen world of trials and temptations, she found the jungle too much. ‘No sun, no sky, a green ceiling, a wall of trees, a lot of insects each more dreadful than the next. I walked with a hat pulled down over my ears because all sorts of things fall on your head, ants that bite you, insects, lice, ticks. You have to wear gloves because everything in the jungle bites. Each time you try to grab on to something so that you don’t fall, you’ve put your hand on a tarantula, you’ve put your hand on a thorn, or a leaf that bites. It’s an absolutely hostile world, dangerous, with dangerous animals,’ she said. ‘But the most dangerous of all was man, those behind me with their big guns.’

After six years, it is easy to see how hope of rescue could be lost. But all the while, the authorities were working a master plan and waiting for just the right moment.

After boarding the rescuing helicopter, ‘suddenly, something happened … I saw the commander who had been in charge of us for so many years, who so often humiliated us and was such a despot – naked and handcuffed on the floor’. How did Paul put it? “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Like Ingrid’s, our tormentors of demons and sins will be humiliated, stripped bare of power and lie handcuffed on the floor, the day we fly away from this jungle.

All she could hear was one of the ‘mission’ agents shouting ‘We are from the army. You’re free’. The video then captures the look of incredulity on the faces of those on board – some of whom had been held for 11 years. They tear off their restraints, and jump with joy so hard Betancourt feared the helicopter ‘would drop out of the sky’.

Three and a half minutes after leaving the ground, the same blurry video shows her eyes wide with utter astonishment. ‘Oh my God!’ she screams incredulously into the camera. ‘Thank you so much. God! Thank you so much. We never thought this would happen,’ she weeps as she hugs fellow captive Colombian soldier William Perez, 36.

Today Betancourt is free ‘to breathe the air of France’, where she was flown after Wednesday’s rescue and reunited with the son and daughter she has never before seen as adults – Melanie, 22, and Lorenzo, 19. ‘To feel them, to touch them, to hold them in my arms,’ she wept as she clutched their hands. ‘They’re fantastic. They’re beautiful’.

As the familiar hymn says, “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.”

If God were going to unleash His wrath in a world wide, cataclysmic tribulation unmatched in human history, wouldn’t you think the Father would get His kids out?

I’m talking about the timely rescue of God’s children in the Rapture of the church and the resurrection of those who died in Christ. He will spare the living church from the wrath of the Lamb unleashed during the seven year Tribulation. Our final loving act is our heavenly Father will send His Son to rescue and resurrect us to share His glory (see I Thess. 4:13 – 5:11).

The Father started this church by sending His Spirit; He will finish it by retrieving His children. The Father brought us in and He will bring us out. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thess. 5:9).

This will be a rescue and resurrection of untold millions from all over the planet and “in the twinkling of an eye.” Like Ingrid’s there will be “the sheer euphoria of an unprecedented rescue operation that will go down in history for its audacity and effectiveness” and you and I will be free to breathe the air of heaven.

The Ancient of Days is soon to reach over and unleash the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to take back planet earth from the Devil. Before He does so, He’ll get His children out of harm’s way. We call it the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church and it can be summed up in one word – VICTORY! And it comes from God the Father.

The graves are getting restless. The trumpet is polished and tuned. The Lion is about to roar! Are you ready?