Today, Thursday June 16
The Song of Victory
Revelation 15:1-4 “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: "Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested."
First, let me thank everyone for your prayers for our daughter, Kimberly and her husband Chris. They were expecting their first child and Kimberly was about twenty-two weeks in the pregnancy. Yesterday evening, little Michael Luke decided to come early and was born very premature at one pound and eight ounces. He survived the birth and is presently in the NIC unit. We would appreciate your continued prayers! BTW, Luke is our eighteenth grandchild!
Life can be very tough and difficult and often throws us a curve ball very unexpectedly. We never know what we might face in our lives on any given day. But as we said yesterday, we can always have the peace of Jesus in our hearts and minds and experience victory in our lives no matter what we face! (John 6:33)
These Tribulation saints have been martyred and they no doubt had suffered in unimaginable ways because they refused to take the mark of the beast and yet they are singing a song of victory! You would think that if someone suffers and are killed by their enemy that they lost! But this scripture says they had victory over the beast.
I love what John calls the Antichrist here, “the beast”. Even for us today, anything that is terrible, mean, awful, cruel and causes suffering is a beast! We all face “beast” and have to deal with them in our lives! They often show up in the form of people. Or they appear as major problems in our finances or even in our health or in a tragedy that we go through. And we never know when they will appear.
The people of Israel had just been delivered from the cruel tyranny of Pharaoh and had marched out of Egypt untouched. The Egyptians were thrilled they were leaving were giving them tremendous amounts of gold and silver and jewelry. You can imagine the euphoria that they were feeling. They were free after years of hardship and bondage! They were finally going home to the Promise Land of their ancestors.
But they didn’t go far, until they heard the sound of horses and chariots behind them and turn to see the entire army of Pharaoh and Egypt coming after them and they find themselves between a rock and a sea. Just when they think they are free, they face the danger of being destroyed or taken back into slavery. But then God does one of the greatest miracles in the Bible! He parts the Red Sea and they are able to march across on dry land and the same sea destroys their enemy behind them.
That’s often how it works in our lives. Just after a wonderful experience or blessing we are overwhelmed with a terrible tragedy or health issue. The Tribulation saints had just found salvation and forgiveness of sins and almost immediately they face the “beast”. They suffered and many are killed. But in this passage, it says they had victory!
In their song, the Tribulation saints praise God's works as well as His ways. The earth-dwellers certainly would not praise God for His works, and they would never understand His ways. God's works are great and marvelous, and His ways are just and true. There is no complaint here about the way God permitted these people to suffer! It would save us a great deal of sorrow if we would acknowledge God's sovereignty in this same way today! "The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works" (Ps. 145:17).
My friend, we can always have victory in Jesus! “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)
God bless!
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