Pastoral Pings ~ The One Victory that Guarantees the Rest

         This morning I was contemplating the significance of “the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet.”[1] As I looked back into chapter 1 to remind myself of what John had heard and seen regarding that first voice, I made a list of all the qualities John described about Jesus. I was greatly encouraged with the overwhelming picture of how Jesus will always be exalted over anyone who chooses to be his enemy. Here is that list:

Jesus

Anyone Else

“a loud voice like a trumpet” (1:10) “in the midst of the lampstands” (1:13) “one like a son of man” (1:13) “clothed with a long robe” (1:13) “with a golden sash around his chest” (1:13) “The hairs of his head were white, like wool, like snow” (1:14) “His eyes were like a flame of fire” (1:14) “his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace (1:15) “his voice as like the roar of many waters” (1:15) “In his right hand he held seven stars” (1:16) “from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword” (1:16) “his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (1:16)

          This took me back to the very worst thing that Jesus’ enemies ever did to him. They betrayed him, arrested him, beat him, mocked him, flogged him, and crucified him. They celebrated as his torturous execution began. They outnumbered him, and they had him where they wanted him: suffering on a Roman cross, despised and rejected of men,[2] appearing to be the blasphemer of God they had desperately tried to prove that he was[3].

          However, Jesus’ revealed his supremacy over all his creation by taking the death his enemies had inflicted upon him and turning it into the atoning sacrifice for sin.[4] He died because “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”[5] His enemies did not succeed at killing him, but Jesus succeeded at raising countless numbers of people from the deadness of their sin.[6]

          After he had finished his redemptive work, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”[7] Jesus could not be held by the grave, or by his enemies, because he is supreme and sovereign over all things.

          One of the resounding messages of the book of Revelation is that Jesus’ brothers “…are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”[8] We are conquerors because Jesus conquered sin, death, hell and the grave. No matter what his enemies do to him, or his creation, or his church, Jesus will conquer, and his church will be victorious in him.

          If nothing else, look at your worst circumstances in light of what Jesus accomplished through the cross. When it looked like all of God’s enemies on earth, and in the spiritual realm, were destroying him, he was sovereignly working the greatest victory the world has ever seen.

          The church now waits in expectation of the final victory of Jesus Christ where his church will be liberated from this sinful world, all God’s enemies will be destroyed, and God’s people will be brought to live in our eternal home forever. Jesus’ sovereign Lordship in the redemptive work he finished on the cross assures every one of his children, no matter what we are living through today, that he will have no difficulty leading us into the home he is finishing up for us as we speak.

          From my heart,

          Monte

© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] Revelation 4:1

[2] Isaiah 53:3

[3] “Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy.” (Matthew 26:67)

[4] “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:26)

[5] Philippians 2:8

[6] “⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2) “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4) “⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7)

[7] Philippians 2:9-11

[8] Romans 8:37; all the seven letters to the churches refer to the ones who conquer.