5 When he opened the third seal,
I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a
black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And
I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures,
saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a
denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”[1]
I
believe that this is an easy-to-remember picture that covers all those seasons
in history when some group of believers will face the shortage of various everyday
necessities. At those times when there is some kind of shortage in the
provision of our daily bread, God is still working to perform his will in such
a way that we can say: “For
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing
with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”[2]
To
encourage us that whatever we suffer is not worth comparing to the coming glory,
the book of Revelation shows Christians the kinds of things we will suffer, and
the kinds of troubles that will come upon the world. It then assures us that
none of these seasons of suffering do anything to diminish the glory that is to
be revealed to us. Our eyes are upon the glory, and that tells a different
story!
That
is why, before revealing the sufferings of this present time, we are shown the
glory of the heavenly throne room.[3] That
is also why, after showing us all kinds of bad things that will happen in the
world, we are shown the paradise prepared for God’s people.[4] All
of this is to keep our eyes fixed on the glory that is to be revealed to us.
This
is also why Paul so carefully assures us that everyone who has received Jesus
Christ as their Lord and Savior can put their hope, not in themselves, but in
the God who foreknew them in love from before the foundation of the world.
Everyone the Lord God has foreknown in his everlasting love, he has most
certainly predestined to be adopted as his sons. All those God has personally
predestined to enter into sonship through the Lord Jesus Christ, he has called
to himself through the gospel of grace. Every person he calls to himself
through the redemption that is provided in Jesus Christ, he brings into the
experience of justification by faith. And, everyone who has been justified
through the connection of grace operating in their lives through faith, has
already been deemed glorified, and will most certainly enter into all that this
entails.[5]
God
is working toward this day that we will be glorified, and all the things that
are going to happen that fit the symbolism of the images in Revelation will be as
nothing compared to the glory we will experience in his presence. This glory is
so certain that we are to consider our daily growth in Christ in terms of our
glory in Christ’s glory. Paul describes it this way:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from one
degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.[6]
Putting
this in context, we are on a journey from God foreknowing us in love, to
predestining us into sonship, to calling us into salvation, to justifying us by
faith, to glorifying us in his presence, and that means that, in the present
time, he is transforming us into the same image as the Lord Jesus Christ “from one degree of glory to another,"
until the day “when he
appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is."
We
must keep in mind that being transformed into the image of the Son of God will
often look like the Beatitudes. We will feel the poverty of our spirits because
we are so distant from the likeness of Jesus Christ. It will repeatedly feel
like we are mourning something that is wrong with us, something that is
painfully different from the way Jesus is. We will regularly find ourselves in situations
where we are staring at some undeniable sign of unrighteousness within us, and
feel the meekness that agrees with God that there is nothing we can do to make
ourselves better than we are. And we will often find ourselves feeling some
fresh sensation of hunger and thirst for a level of righteousness that we do
not already experience in Jesus Christ our Lord.[1]
God
will regularly, perhaps constantly, bring us through the Beatitudinal Valley to
change us to the likeness of Jesus Christ. We will end one day on a “higher,"
feeling like we have just got to know God better than we have ever known him
before, only to find the next morning beginning with a deeper “deeper” than we
can remember feeling in our walk with God. Once we get used to this, we will
realize that this is exactly what it has to look like for us to be transformed daily
from one degree of glory to another. We get that satisfaction of seeing
something in us change so that we can feel that we are truly experiencing the
transforming work of the gospel making us like our Savior, and then we hear an invitation
to the next lesson in Christlikeness, sometimes feeling like we are starting
all over again.
At
the beginning of my prayer-time, I asked God to make me feel like his Holy
Spirit was testifying to my spirit that I am a son of God.[7] I
wanted to feel like a child who is carried in my Savior’s arms,[8]
held close to his heart, hearing the heartbeat of his love, and feeling as
wrapped up in the arms and love of Christ as I witness little children
experiencing when they ask for a hug.
What
I find as I read about the sufferings of this present time not being worth
comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us, is the way Paul continues
a thought about the Holy Spirit that ministers to me in answer to my prayer.
Paul wrote of the Holy Spirit, and our sufferings, in this way:
15 For you
did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have
received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears
witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and
if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we
suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.[9]
This
is the message of the book of Revelation. We did not receive the spirit of
slavery to fall back into fear, and so we are not to fall into fear every time
something bad happens to us. It is obvious that, if Paul is talking about this
negative, that we did not receive something that would cause us to “fall back” into fear, then the opposite
is also true, that we did receive something to take us out of fear.
This
is in line with what Paul and other apostles spoke about in other places. Paul
told Timothy, “for God
gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control”.[10] In the spirit, or attitude, or experience of our hearts that is in
us because of Christ, we are no longer bound to fear, but we have the power,
the love, the self-control that is our right in Jesus Christ our Lord.
This
is what the apostle John spoke of as well. He wrote, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear
has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”[11]
The conclusion of the matter goes something like this: For
the believer in Jesus Christ, there is no fear in any of the things described
in the seven seals, because Jesus is breaking them, and giving us full access
to everything the Father has written on his scroll. We have been brought into a
life that is no longer consumed by fear, but is constantly growing in our
experience of that perfect love that casts out our fears. This perfect love of
God working in our souls causes us to feel power, love, and self-control
through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. This Comforter from God daily
witnesses to us that we are the children of God, just as God chose us to be before
the beginning of time.
From my heart,
Monte
© 2014 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.)
[1] Revelation 6:5-6
[2] Romans 8:18
[3] Revelation 4-5
[4] Revelation 19-22
[5] “29 For
those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined
he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he
justified he also glorified.” (Romans 8) ~ (Along with elaborations from other
Scriptures speaking of the same things)
[6] II Corinthians 3:18
[7] “The
Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16)
[8] “He
tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and
carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” (Isaiah 40:11 NIV ~ the way I first learned it)
[9] Romans 8
[10] II Timothy 1:7
[11] I John 4:18
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