Gems in Revelation - Part 143

Gems in the book of Revelation

Part 143- Revelation 12:7–12
The Kingdom has come

In 12:10-12 there is a quite remarkable statement from heaven. Here it is:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens
and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short.”


It tells how events in heaven have effects on earth. How there is evil in this world and it is not just the individual evil of one person and another but a sort of evil that at times seems to be a general evil affecting communities as it did in Germany during the days of Hitler. How can this be? Many people wish that we lived in a world where nothing ever goes wrong. There are never natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. Where people never die young because of diseases. There are never accidents on the roads that kill and injure people. Where good people live long and wicked people die young.

They never stop to think what a boring world that would be! If there were no earthquakes there would be no mountains because no part of the world would ever clash against another. If there were no diseases we would all have to know how old we would be when we would die - everyone would have to die on the afternoon of their 70th birthday! No accidents on the roads would only be if no one ever drove at more than 15 miles an hour. Everything would be carefully mapped out so that we would know in advance what was going to happen. What a terrible world to live in. God understood that so he created a world of infinite variety for us to enjoy - and sometimes make a mess of.

That is what is described in these verses. There are rulers and authorities and powers in this dark world and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms as Paul put it (Ephesians 6:12).

They have all been triumphed over by the blood of the Lamb as our portion puts it but they are not yet all dead and buried. Many of our brothers and sisters have had to die ‘12:11. But God is in control of what happens. He has put us in this sometimes awkward world that we sometimes do not like because it doesn’t quite work the way we wish it did.

 

Thank you Lord for this world in which we live. Thank you for all the bits we do not like. May we ever be faithful as so many of our predecessors have been.

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