Rescue the perishing

There is something special about the person who rescues someone who seems to be drawing closer to losing who they are in Christ. It would seem that today I am being challenged to deliver them who are dying and to hold them back from going down that slippery slope.

Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work? – Proverbs 24:11-12  ESV

I may want to take the easy way out and think this is just about those who have suffered a miscarriage of justice and it is my duty to deliver them. That kind of leaves a pious or well-informed moral obligation on the table.  Since we are in Proverbs, I would like to think that Wisdom has no pleasure in the death of anyone, innocent or not. In the Septuagint, verse eleven reads like this…

 “Deliver those that are being led away to death, and redeem ( ἐκπρίου) those that are appointed to be slain; spare not (to help them)” 

If I help only those I know and ignore others, those are not good principles to follow. Why would I choose to be a selfish person? God knows my heart and He knows the truth – He knows that whatever excuse I use holds no water.  I am faced once again with the law of love which is limited by no circumstances.  Back to the Septuagint for verse twelve…

“But if thou say, I know not this man, know that the Lord knoweth the hearts of air; and he who formed ( πλάσας) breath for all, himself knoweth all things, who rendereth to every man according to his works.”

Lord, I trust You – let me help the one You want me to rescue.