The Old Testament is filled with examples of God taking our bad, worse, and worst, and making us glad, no longer under the curse, and first.
Lot could not be a worse example of "wrongdoing and failure", yet God's grace blessed him:
"Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: 20Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. 21And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. 22Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. " (Genesis 19:19)
Incidentally enough, "mercy" first appears in the Bible in this passage -- connected with "loser" Lot. His presence blessed the city of Zoar.
Lot's daughters got him drunk and caused him to father children with them (Genesis 19: 36-38).
One of his later descendants, Ruth, would go from poor, widowed, childless exile to highly exalted woman of favor, married to Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer and type of our Lord Jesus.
"Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day."
Quite a legacy for Ruth, which typifies what Jesus Christ has done for us.
11And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem: 12And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman." (Ruth 4: 10-12)
Ruth, who would be an ancestor of David and later Jesus Christ (Matthew 1) is compared to Tamar, whose dubious past would scandalize many, as she disguised herself as a prostitute to get pregnant through her own father-in-law, Judah.
Rather than deny his perversion, the Bible records the following:
26And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more." (Genesis 38: 26)
The worst people, the biggest losers, people who are as down and out as it get:, all receive God's grace.
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