No matter
what happens in the world today, and no matter how much threat and action is
expressed against Jesus’ brothers, here is how my Heavenly Father ministered
hope to my heart today. It began with jigsaw puzzle pieces coming to mind
one-by-one, and ended with such a glorious picture of God’s unfailing plans and
purposes for our good and his glory, that it is literally impossible for God’s
enemies to succeed, or for God to fail.
Puzzle Piece One
Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.[1]
No matter
what else happens in history, the world will hear story after story of the
church of Jesus Christ charging out through the pages of history and turning
lost and broken sinners into “more than
conquerors through him who loved us.”[2]While
the news stories of death and destruction increase, there are also many stories
of people turning to Jesus Christ in genuine faith as they see the life that is
in God’s Son.
Puzzle Piece Two
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.[3]
The church Jesus
is building will prevail. The church Jesus is building does not require
buildings, so it isn’t a defeat when buildings are taken away. We aren’t here
to establish denominations, so it isn’t going to hinder Jesus’ church when a
denomination turns away from God. The church doesn’t have any other name, so
the names of Christian groups that come and go does not mean the church comes
and goes. The church doesn’t have earthly foundations, but it moves with the
Spirit who blows wherever he wishes,[4] so
it is no surprise that the church is able to move and grow around the earth,
gathering people from certain places in one generation, and moving on to gather
people from other nations in other generations.
Because Jesus
is the one building his own church, and the gates of hell “shall not prevail against it,” it will grow as this living,
spiritual, body of people who are redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and will one day stand around the throne of God in glory,[5]
shining back to God the glory of his work in us.
Puzzle Piece Three
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!”[6]
Jesus’ church
will end up standing before the throne of the living God, right where that
throne is, with the church right where we should be. No one will move God’s
throne, or remove God from his throne. No one will stop the church that Jesus is
building from saving souls from every nation, from all the tribes and peoples
and languages of the earth.
This glorious
picture of the multitude of people who are redeemed out of every nation and
people and group we could imagine tells us that Satan is thoroughly defeated in
his attempt to keep God from having a people in the image and likeness of Jesus
Christ.[7]
Satan lured Eve into being like him, and thinking like him, and acting like
him, and so she helped Adam bring sin into the world.[8] For
all intents and purposes, Satan thought he had destroyed God’s work of making a
people in his own image and likeness.
Left that
way, with Satan bringing all of humanity into sin beginning with the first two
people God created, we would have had a world in which someone had been victorious
over God. God had a will about something, but Satan appeared to thwart God’s
will. God set out to do something, but Satan made it impossible for God to have
what he set out to do.
One reason
that Scripture gives such beautiful details of God working out the plan of
salvation before he began to create the world,[9]
was to reveal to us that God had Satan defeated before the beginning of time.
God had a plan to outsmart Satan’s attempt to outsmart God, and now that plan
of salvation from God rings out to every tribe and nation, bringing people into
the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ, resulting in this great and glorious
multitude surrounding the throne with the thankful song that salvation belongs
to God and the Lamb. Salvation comes from the throne of God, through the Lamb
who stands before the throne, looking as though he had been slain,[10]
opening the seven seals until all the will of God is accomplished.[11]
While Satan
has had great success in destroying lives, he has not defeated God. While God
has allowed the world to see how evil Satan is, and to let Satan vent his full
fury against God in every way imaginable,[12]
God glorifies himself by showing that he has saved completely every single
person who comes to him through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus receives every
person who is given to him by the Father. Everyone who is appointed by God to
receive and experience eternal life receives and experiences eternal life
because Satan cannot win against God.[13]
The Glorious Picture
This is the
eternal hope of the believer in Jesus Christ. While we may cringe with grief
and confusion at the evils Satan is able to perpetrate in the world, we see
this glorious picture of God fulfilling all his plans and purposes in Jesus Christ.
If God has saved us at all, he has saved us forever. If we have come to God by
faith in Jesus Christ, we will one-day stand before God in the image and
likeness of his Son.
God “who began a good work in you will bring it
to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,”[14]and
there is nothing Satan can do to stop him. God who is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,
according to the power at work within us,”[15]is
able to fulfill all his plans, purposes, and promises, no matter how hard Satan
works to stop him.
Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and
no one will snatch them out of my hand.”[16]This
means that the lost and spiritually dead people who are Jesus’ lost sheep will
hear Jesus’ voice when he calls them into his salvation. They will come to Jesus
through the power of the gospel. They will be saved. Jesus will take them into
his hands forever. No one will ever snatch us away from him. No matter how much
Satan is able to damage and demoralize churches and Christians, he cannot take
us away from our Savior. Ever!
So, Jesus adds
why it is impossible for Satan to succeed in stealing sheep from the flock of
God. He says, “My Father, who has given
them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the
Father's hand.”[17]The
Father is greater than Satan, and all Satan’s minions, so when the Father has
given us to his Son, working to make his Son the firstborn among many brothers,[18]he
is greater than all, so no one is able to snatch us out of the Father’s hand.
Satan gave it
his best shot to stop God from having a people in the image and likeness of his
Son, and God has completely defeated him. “He
disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing
over them in him (Jesus Christ).”[19]This
is why Jesus, “is able to save to the
uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make
intercession for them.”[20]
This is also
why God “is able to keep you from
stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with
great joy.”[21]He
is able. Satan cannot stop God who sits on the highest throne, who has the
greatest name, who wields unstoppable power, because God is able to save those
who come near to him through Jesus Christ, and he will fulfill his plan of
having those people in his own image and likeness forever.
When we see
that glorious picture of the “great
multitude that no one could number,” crying out before the throne of God, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on
the throne, and to the Lamb!” we understand why God’s servant would
conclude, “to the only God, our Savior,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority,
before all time and now and forever. Amen.”[22]
God’s children can declare such blessed news because it is the way things will
be when God decides enough is enough.
So, yes, even
in today’s awful tragedies, with the world flexing its muscles under Satan’s
direction and deception, there is a heavenly Father who sits on the throne, and
a Lamb looking as though he had been slain standing fully alive before the
throne of his Father. There is a scroll of divine will that cannot be opened by
anyone except the Son of God who was slain. As he opens each of the seals on
the scroll, God’s judgment unfolds upon the world in increments of grace,
giving people time to repent and leave the deadly folly of Satan’s will, his
work, and his ways.
When all is
said and done, the trumpets are blown, the bowls of wrath are poured out, there
will be this “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, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation
belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Even while we
hear further stories of the heartbreaking tragedies, torture, and death
perpetrated against God’s people, the rest of the story is that God himself is
adding to that joyful multitude that will stand around the throne in full and
complete joy over the salvation they have received in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is
still time to settle that we will be in that multitude.
© 2015 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 6:1-2
[2]
Romans 8:37
[3]
Matthew 16:18
[4]
John 3:5-8
[5]
Romans 8:28-30 shows this glorious work of God from its foundation in eternity,
its present work of working everything for good, and its promised completion
when we are fully conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, glorified in
his glory.
[6]
Revelation 7:9-10
[7]
Genesis 1:26-27
[8]
Genesis 3
[9]
Ephesians 1:3-14 is one such example.
[10]
Revelation 5:6
[11]
Revelation 5:7-14
[12]
Revelation 12:12
[13]
Acts 13:48
[14]
Philippians 1:6
[15]
Ephesians 3:20
[16]
John 10:27-28
[17]
John 10:29
[18]
Romans 8:29
[19]
Colossians 2:15
[20]
Hebrews 7:25
[21]
Jude 1:24
[22]
Jude 1:25
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