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Jesus Succeeded Where Israel Failed

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Matthew 4:1

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The 3 temptations hurled at Jesus by the devil in Matthew 4 are fairly familiar to New Testament readers. The devil tried to get Jesus to make bread from stones, to leap off the temple, and to bow to worship him. All three of these, had he given in, would have been failures. But what more is happening?

In this passage, Jesus is succeeding where the nation of Israel in the wilderness wanderings failed. It is significant that we see Matthew, who cites Old Testament Scriptures prodigiously, emphasize that Jesus was in the wilderness. The picture, if we think Old Testament, is Israel in the Exodus wandering the wilderness for 40 years.

The call to turn stones to bread is a call from the devil for Jesus to use his own power in his own way for his own physical provision. Israel failed at this in the desert. When God commanded Israel to gather manna, people disobeyed by gathering too much or by gathering on the Sabbath when gathering was forbidden. In other places in the wanderings, the nation sinned against God by not trusting him to provide or by grumbling against his provision. At the border, after the spies were sent into the land, the nation refused to trust God enough to go in and take the land starting with Jericho. One might see that, in this instance, Jesus relies on the provision of his Father without complaint where national Israel did not. Jesus succeeds where Israel failed.

In the second temptation, the devil attempts to get Jesus to cast himself down from the high point of the temple, a nearly 400-foot drop according to some. This is a call to get Jesus to stop seeking to do the work he was sent to do in the way God sent him to do it. It was a call to try to get Jesus to take a lazy and easy way out, forcing the hand of god. Jesus refused, as he would not put God to the test. Of course, in the wilderness, Israel failed here. There were people who demanded that God provide for them beyond the manna. Others presumed upon the Lord and tried to go and take Jericho even after God had forbidden them from entering the land after their refusal to trust him. If the first temptation was a temptation not to trust God to provide, this second is a temptation to force God’s hand by stepping out where God did not command. Jesus again succeeded where Israel failed.

In the third temptation, the devil offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would simply bow and worship him. In the days of the Old Covenant, one of Israel’s greatest failures was idolatry. The nation turned from the Lord and bowed to statues that represented demons. Jesus, of course, would not worship anyone but the Lord God. Jesus succeeded where Israel failed.

God called on the nation of Israel to be his people. He gave them a set of commands to obey, commands that were not burdensome. As a nation, they would not and could not obey. They could not work their way to God through obedience to ordinances.

Where the nation of Israel did not live up to the commands of God, the Savior did. Where Adam did not keep the command of God, Jesus did. Where you and I have never lived up to the commands of God, Jesus has.

In order to be saved, we need two things: a paid penalty and a perfect righteousness. We need the penalty for our sin to be paid. For us to try to pay the price for our sin, an infinite offense to an infinitely holy God, we would spend eternity in hell. But Jesus, the infinitely worthy Son of god paid that price on the cross. We also need perfect righteousness to enter the presence of God. But we have failed. Jesus has succeeded where all people have failed. And the Lord will count all who come to Jesus as possessing the record of Jesus’ righteousness. Thus, Jesus pays the penalty for our sin and grants us imputed righteousness, counting his perfection to our account, so that we can be in the presence of god in heaven in perfect joy forever. This forgiveness and gifted righteousness is for all who will come to Jesus in faith and repentance.

Three in One in One Picture

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Matthew 3:16-18

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Spirit is God. There is one God. This, in short, is the doctrine of the trinity. We worship the one God in three persons.

Among some believers, a belief system we call modalism has tried to redefine the doctrine of the trinity for centuries. The modalist believes that the persons of the holy trinity, the one true God, are simply different presentations of God, but not different persons. In simplest terms, these would suggest that God presented himself as the Father or Yahweh (Jehovah) in the Old Testament, but became Jesus in the New Testament. Once Jesus left, God presented as the Holy Spirit. But, to those who follow this belief system, there is no trinity, no single God who is these 3 persons all at once.

But take note of what we see happening in Matthew 3 as a simple prooftext that the doctrine of the trinity is actually biblically correct and the presentation of modalism is mistaken. At the baptism of Jesus, in one biblical picture, we see Jesus, God the Son, going into the water. We see the Spirit of God descending upon Jesus like a dove. We hear the voice of the Father. These are three persons in the frame of the picture at the very same time. There is only one God. These three persons are God. This is the trinity presented in a moment.

You might think to yourself that you have never struggled to believe in the holy trinity, even if it is hard to explain. But you might be wise to consider if you have tried to explain the trinity and ended up in a form of modalism. For example, I once heard a dear Christian attempt to illustrate the trinity by saying that a man can, at the same time, be a husband, a father, and a son. That is a perfect picture of the unbiblical doctrine of modalism. You might hear another person try to explain the trinity by reminding us that ice, water, and steam are all water. Again, this is modalism, one water changing form. Honestly, there is no such thing as a good metaphor for the trinity. We are far more likely to present false doctrine through a metaphor than we are to accurately express the infinite in a finite picture. So, I recommend we ditch any metaphor and stick with the Scripture’s claims: God the Father is God; Jesus is God; the Holy Spirit is God; There is only one God.

Out of Egypt I Called My Son

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Matthew 2:13-15

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

The wise men from the east came to worship Jesus while he and his family remained in Bethlehem. This was likely when Jesus was a toddler. Joseph and Mary seem to have set up house for a bit in Joseph’s family’s native town. Perhaps this was to give Mary time to recover from the birth. Perhaps Joseph and Mary wondered where they should raise the Son of God.

But God would move Joseph, Mary, and young Jesus exactly where he wanted them. When King Herod plotted to kill Jesus by slaughtering all the children in Bethlehem, God rescued the family by calling on them to flee to Egypt. Perhaps this destination was made ready for them by the Jewish community that grew up in Egypt around the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The family would remain safely in Egypt until Herod’s death, which historians tell us took place in 4 BC. Then God would move the family back into the land of Israel and to the town of Nazareth.

We know this story pretty well. And many Christians are familiar with the end of verse 15, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” But have you ever considered what is being said here?

Matthew cites Hosea 11:1. In context, Hosea is speaking about Israel, the nation, which god rescued from Egypt in the exodus. Now Matthew says that this is Jesus. Jesus is doing what Israel did. Israel is the type and Jesus the antitype. Israel and the exodus foreshadow the life and the work of Jesus.

In Genesis 12, God promised Abram that he would bless the entire world through Abram’s offspring. The reference is not to all the offspring of Abram, all the people born in his line, the nation, but simply to a singular offspring, through Christ. Matthew shows us that this offspring of Abram, the Israel of God, is fully bound up in the person and work of Jesus. What God promised Israel, God promised Jesus. When God is victorious in Jesus, God fulfills his promises to Israel.

While all this might seem a bit heady, there is application for the Christian of today. Are you saved? Are you in Christ? If so, then you are in the true Israel of God. What God promised his people is what God promised you. No, you and the church have not replaced Israel. But all who are in Christ, all who have blessing in Christ, have been counted in the true Israel.

National Israel in the Old Testament is the nation through which God promised to fulfill his glorious plan. And national Israel had a very conditional covenant. When national Israel obeyed, they would be blessed. When national Israel disobeyed, they would be judged. Within national Israel would be found members of the true, spiritual Israel, true believers in God who were under his grace. And it is certain, as Paul says in Romans 9, that not all who are Israel are Israel—not all in the nation are truly saved and under God’s grace. But God would always preserve a remnant of the nation out of love for Abraham, the other forefathers, and David. More importantly, God would preserve a remnant of the nation so that he could fulfill his promise to send the Christ out of that nation.

Now the Christ has come. He is now the representative head of the true Israel of God, the people under his grace. And we see that Jesus plays this role by being the true Son of God whom he called out of Egypt.

Jesus fulfills all of God’s promises. To be part of the true Israel of god has nothing at all to do with your ethnicity. It all has to do with this question, “Are you in Christ?” This gives hope to all who have seen themselves guilty of sin and have run to Jesus for mercy. And the offer of God’s mercy is available to all who will repent and believe.

A Glorious Title Page

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Matthew 1:1

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

When you open a new book, you will see, before the text gets started, a title page. There you find things much like what you already know from the book jacket. You find the name of the author, the publisher, the publishing date, the title, etc. Unless you are needing to look up information for a proper bibliographical citation, you are likely to flip past the title page quickly in order to get to the main text, the reason you bought the book in the first place.

Starting a look at the Gospel According to Matthew, the opening verse rings in my ears. Part of this is because I have been in Genesis for weeks in sermon preparation. Part of the reason is that I have been particularly working through a study of biblical covenants. Though to many this text feels a lot like a book’s title page, it is far richer, far grander than all that.

Labeling this first little section “the book of the genealogy” reminds us of Genesis. The major sections of Genesis are headed with a similar title. We see sections on the sons of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and of others. These sections track for us vital information about the people with whom God is working, the people through whom God is building the world and fulfilling his promise. And Matthew is going to show us the person who is the focus and goal of all that history, of all human history.

Jesus is called Christ. The word means anointed. Jesus, a name meaning Yahweh saves, is the Christ, the anointed one, the chosen one, the promised one from God. This is his story.

And we see that Jesus is the son of David and the son of Abraham. There Matthew highlights for us two of the key covenants that God made in the pages of the Old Testament. God told David that a descendant of his would be enthroned as king over the whole world forever. God told Abraham that he would build a nation out of his family, and that he would bless the entire world through Abraham’s offspring. With a bit of biblical knowledge, we know that in the arrival of this Jesus, this Christ, we have the one who fulfills these promises. The king has come. The offspring of Abraham has finally arrived. The king who will bring the blessing of God to the entire world has been born of the family of Abraham just as God has promised us starting in Genesis 12.

What do we do with this little line that sounds like a title page? We praise God. God is faithful. God makes and fulfills promises. God has made a massive set of promises to the world to bring one who will crush the devil (Genesis 3), bless people from every nation (Genesis 12), and reign as king forever (2 Samuel 7). This promised one will also bring the salvation of God to mankind by bringing God’s forgiveness through his own blood (Isaiah 53). That we can read the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the Son of Abraham is a miracle that tells us that God is faithful and that God has fulfilled and will fulfill all his promises.

Gospel in Books and Trees and Adam and Christ

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Revelation 20:11–15

11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

As we draw near the end of the book of Revelation, we see the great white throne judgment. There all people who have not already been raised to life experience their resurrection and the confirmation of their eternal destination.* When the people are brought before the throne of Christ, we see a dichotomy. There are two ways a person can be judged. There are books and there is a book.

The passage above shows us that a person judged by the “books” is judged based on his own deeds. What did you do in your life? A person judged by the “book of life” is given life simply based on whether or not his name is present there. The bottom line is that, if God judges you based on what you do, your works, you die forever. If, however, you are under the grace of Jesus, the Lamb, you live eternally in glorious joy.

Think of some other popular pairs in Scripture, and this scene develops some greater clarity. In the garden, God pointed out two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was forbidden the tree of knowledge. If he chose to eat of that tree, he would die. God, in the garden, had a very simple test for Adam. If the man would obey God’s command, he would live. If he rebelled against that command, he would die.

Of course, the two trees also remind us of the two choices for humanity’s representative leadership, our federal head. Adam is the original representative of mankind before god. All who remain under Adam’s representation die. Adam sinned and brought guilt on all humanity as we see in Romans 5:12-19 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. Under Adam, the command to live perfectly before God still applies, any failure still brings death, but there is no way to live well enough to earn life.

God sent Jesus into the world to be the second Adam, the better Adam, the true and perfect representative for mankind. If a person is found in Christ, even if that person has not lived up to God’s standard of perfection, he will live because of the perfection of Christ. Jesus, God in flesh, lived the perfection Adam never did. Jesus died a perfect sacrificial death. Jesus rose from the grave, defeated death, and proved that all who come to him are forgiven. Jesus is now the representative of all who come to him in faith. God actually grants to the saved the legal record of Jesus’ perfection.

Put the books, the trees, Adam, and Jesus all in one scene now and see how clearly the Bible has been telling one single story. You have a choice of trees. Will you have the tree of life or the tree of death? You have a choice; will you be represented by Adam or by Jesus? You have a choice; will you be judged by your own actions in the books, or will you be found forgiven by Jesus with your name in the book of life? There is no third option. Either you try to live as your own master and die, or you surrender to Jesus and receive all the grace he offers. Choose life. Choose the Christ. Choose the book of life.

* I view Revelation 20 from a historic pre-millennial position (not dispensationalism). Thus, I believe that two resurrections are being promised, the resurrection of the forgiven and the later resurrection of the lost.

A Promise of a Better Kingdom

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Zechariah 2:10-12

10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. 11 And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 12 And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

To the Jew of the sixth century BC, the return of Judah from Babylonian captivity was a major event. It must also have been loaded with questions. Now that God has judged us for our sin and returned us to our land, what should we expect? Will Messiah come and make us a political power? Is the promise still alive? What does it look like?

Here in Zechariah, we see some glorious truths of the promise of God that were made under the Old Covenant but which can only be fulfilled by the establishment of the New Covenant. Notice how God speaks of what will occur beyond the physical return of exiles to Jerusalem. It is cause for joy. God will dwell in the midst of his people. That is bigger and better than even the Old Testament experience of the Jews with the temple or the tabernacle. While those edifices symbolized the presence of God, their walls were there to tell the people that there must be a separation between the Lord and them, a boundary that the people cannot cross. This dwelling in their midst promised in Zechariah sounds bigger and better.

Verse 11 points to the fact that God will gather to himself more than the Jews. Yes, the Jews who trust in him will be included. But God is gathering for himself a people out of all the nations. Again and again, as God makes his ultimate promises, he points to the building of a new people of God, one not determined by ethnicity but by faith.

In verse 12, we see the Lord taking Judah and Jerusalem for himself. Something about this promise of God will include God in Jerusalem accomplishing his kingdom purposes. The place where the temple stood, the place where David ruled, that place will be the great launching point of the blessing of God.

If we put this all together, we see the gospel in sign form. On the surface, this looks like a major promise of blessing on Jerusalem—and it may be that. But well beyond blessing the city, God is going to accomplish his eternal purpose. Jesus, the Son of God, will come into Jerusalem declaring himself King. Jesus will bring to God a nation made up of people from all nations. There will be rejoicing and blessing for the people, as god will live in the midst of his people in a way never before experienced in Israel. The Spirit of God who came to his church in Acts 2 is the better fulfillment of the promise of God dwelling among his people. And, by grace, we also look forward to the day of Christ’s return when God will dwell in our midst both physically and spiritually forever.

Tinkering with Typology in Zechariah

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Zechariah 2:1-5

1 And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand! 2 Then I said, “Where are you going?” And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.” 3 And behold, the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him 4 and said to him, “Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. 5 And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst.’ ”

Prophetic promises in the Old Covenant often carry with them something far greater than they appear to promise. The promises are sometimes pictures foreshadowing that which is to come. When this is the case, we call them types, a theological word for something that points to something else, its antitype.

I recently heard Sam Renihan present three truths about biblical types. A type in the Old Testament includes analogy, escalation, and otherness. Analogy is that element of the type that helps us to have a depiction of what is to come. So, as an example, a sacrificial lamb is analogous of Christ, because the lamb’s blood is shed for the sins of others. Once one sees the Christ to whom the lamb points, it is not hard to imagine how the lamb is analogous, a picture, of the Savior.

Escalation indicates that the antitype is always something greater than the type. No shadow is as great as the substance being shadowed. The sacrificial lamb in an Old Covenant blood sacrifice is nothing near as great as the shed blood of the Son of Almighty God. The fulfillment is always greater.

Otherness indicates that the fulfillment of the type is not merely a bigger experience of exactly the same thing. The type depicts something that has in itself a true difference from the sign that pointed to it. Jesus is not a physical lamb. Instead, Jesus is God who took on human flesh. Jesus is not just a bigger and better sacrificial animal; Jesus is something altogether different, altogether other, altogether greater. The death and resurrection of Jesus does not bring about momentary forgiveness with a requirement of sacrificial repetition, but instead grants eternal, once-and-for-all forgiveness to the believer by grace through faith.

If we are to see the glory in many events and promises in the Old Testament, we need to grasp that many of these are also analogies the fulfillments of which are truths that are both greater and other than the signs. Take Israel in the Exodus as an example. God pulls a single people group out of physical slavery in Egypt. This is a sign that points forward to God, in Christ, rescuing (analogy) a multiethnic people (escalation) from slavery to sin and death (otherness).

Thinking these things through helps me to rejoice in the prophecy that I cite above from Zechariah 2:1-5. In a vision—which helps us to expect typology—a man goes to measure Jerusalem. An angel sends a message to tell the man that the city will be inhabited by so many people that it will be like an unwalled village with God himself as its protection. What do we do with this promise?

In an immediate application, the people of Zechariah’s day should have seen a promise from God of provision and protection. The people were not to underestimate the Lord’s ability to restore and rebuild. They should not assume that God’s ability to accomplish his will is something they could encompass with the measure of their own expectations. God is greater and will do greater things than they imagine. And God will surely accomplish his plan with Jerusalem.

Has this promise come to pass? Certainly God restored Jerusalem and kept the city whole until the arrival of Messiah. But, when we see the grand expanse of the promise, it is a promise that has not yet come to pass in a literal and physical sense. The fulfillment of this promise requires a time in which God makes Jerusalem a great city over which he personally stands guard. Because of this, many expect this to literally be what will come after the return of Christ but before the eternal state, a millennial Jerusalem under the rule of Christ.

For the pre-millennial thinker, the promise of a vastly expanded and supernaturally ruled Jerusalem as the city ruled by Jesus who will be physically present during a thousand-year reign. For those who hold to other eschatological positions, this promise is either something that is yet to be literally fulfilled or something that will be figuratively accomplished. Without attempting to argue for an eschatological millennial position, I want to suggest that it is possible that this prophecy offers us something more, a typological promise that is glorious.

What would applying our grasp of types and antitypes tell us about this promise. The shadow is a promise that God will preserve Jerusalem, fill it with many people, and protect it. If this is typology, then this is an analogy for something else, something similar but greater. Might it not in fact be God using the city of Jerusalem and promises relating to it as analogous promises of what God will do with his people as a whole? After all, Galatians 4:26 refers to “the Jerusalem above,” while Hebrews 12:26 mentions “the heavenly Jerusalem,” something greater than the earthly capital city of physical Israel. We see something very similar as we look at all the symbolism connected to the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21. It is not hard to imagine a biblical analogy of a promise to a city being a promise that will actually be for all the people of God.

How then is there an escalation? The promise is that God will bring lots of people, presumably Jews, to Jerusalem, so many that it will spread beyond its boundaries. What does God actually do? God saves a people for himself out of every nation, not Jews only, and they spread over the entire globe. This is escalation in multiple ways. The globe is greater than the city. The multiethnic kingdom of God is greater than monoethnic Judea. The protecting presence of the Spirit of God over his people is greater than God simply being a wall to a city.

And otherness is easy to grasp. The promises made here talk about God preserving a city. But the actual promise fulfillment is other. The fulfillment, which is greater and better, has to do with the salvation of god’s people and the establishing of his kingdom in Christ forever.

While many people will interpret this passage as a literal future promise for a literal city in a singular geographical location—and that is certainly possible—I believe that we can see even more. We have reason to see this as a type. The fulfillment of this type is analogous, greater, and other. The promise is for a city. The fulfillment is the Kingdom of God in Christ. The promise is physical safety. The fulfillment is eternal life and spiritual salvation. The promise is for a single people group. The Fulfillment is for people from all nations in Christ.

And, if a typological take on this passage is correct, we can cling to this promise with hope and joy. We may think we can measure what God will do. WE cannot. We may look for earthly protection, but God has something greater for us. God will save a multitude of people for himself from all nations, expanding beyond the bounds of many people’s imagination. God will be in his people, giving his Spirit to protect us and show us his glory. For sure, eventually, there will be a day when the Lord Jesus physically reigns on this earth, and all will be made right. This prophecy certainly may be pointing us in that direction too. But even before we see that take place, The fulfillment of this type is something we can experience and rejoice in because of the mystery of Christ now made known in the gospel.

Speaking with Noble Character

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Proverbs 31:26

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

Many of us have heard of the “Proverbs 31 woman.” Many ladies have gone through bible studies about her. Many ladies’ conferences have focused here. And now, many have pushed back, finding there to be a lot of law in many of those teachings without, perhaps, much grace.

Without jumping into that discussion, I think it is safe to say that we can see godly attributes, good characteristics, in Proverbs 31:10-31. The 22 verses each begin with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet—it’s an acrostic. This section offers us the A-B-Cs of a godly lady.

When reading through these things, verse 26 grabbed my attention. Honestly, it did not grab my attention as anything particularly feminine. Instead, it grabbed my attention as something particularly godly and something particularly needed today.

The woman of noble character speaks with the two attributes of wisdom and kindness. Wisdom indicates a lady with a right love of and fear of God. She speaks true things, applying the knowledge of God to daily living. She can look at a situation and bring the truth of God to bear in a way that is right, accurate, and helpful.

The noble woman also speaks with kindness. Please let us never forget that kindness is a fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives. While many on-line have mocked those who question a person’s tone when they speak about issues, the truth is that godly people have kindness as a fruit. And here, as we study the woman of noble character, kindness is an attribute of her speech and her application of godly wisdom.

As I already mentioned, I see nothing particularly feminine here. It is not as if the word of God does not wish for godly men to speak with wisdom and kindness. It just so happens that this particular piece of wisdom in godly character is found in our passage about the woman of noble character. I would suggest to you that all believers could benefit from a dose of both wisdom and kindness as we speak. This is not a call to softness or compromise. It is merely a call to believers to display the fruit of the Spirit in how we speak and how we write.

Dear friends, we need the grace of Jesus here. Who has not spoken unwisely? Who has not been guilty of unkind speech? Who has not laughed when sharp, even mean-spirited, snarky lines have put others in their place? May we lean on the Lord for mercy. May we ask Jesus for help and wisdom. May we seek that the Lord would fill us with his Spirit and that his Spirit would bear the fruit of kindness in us. May we never compromise. Kindness is not allowing sin to go unchecked. May we not tolerate evil. But may we not look like the world in our attitude. Instead, may our lives reflect this noble lady of Proverbs 31 in wisdom and kindness.

Endurance, Faith, and Obedience

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Revelation 14:12

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

What does it look like to live as a true believer in a hard world? God’s word calls us to endurance. And God’s word describes us as those who trust Jesus and follow his commands.

Revelation 13 and 14 paint for us a picture of a polarized, divided, embattled world. In chapter 13, the beast is marking out men as his own and persecuting all who refuse to be identified with him. Those who will not bow to his evil worship or take part in his wicked practices will be cut off from polite society. They will be attacked, mocked, ridiculed, ignored, persecuted, robbed, starved, exiled, and killed. Were a Christian to see that chapter alone, it would be powerfully disheartening in many ways.

But then, as the follow-up to the vision of the beast and false prophet, much like we see in other passages, our scene shifts. We see the Savior, standing strong, keeping his own. We see those bearing not the mark of the beast but of the Lamb. We see songs of worship and faithfulness among the people of God.

Then, as a transition, we read the verse that is above. What we see in chapters 13 and 14, I believe, come together, meet, and lead us to this conclusion. The beast is evil. The world will grow hostile toward those who love and follow the Lord. When the evil are in power, they will seek to ostracize those who love the Lord. But, in the midst of this all, Jesus has his own. Jesus keeps his own. Jesus loves his own. And the call for those who know Jesus is to endure. Stand strong. Do not give up. Do not be discouraged. Endure.

The call for endurance, as we see above, has a tie to marks of identity. The call is for saints, those saved by Jesus and set apart for God. All true believers are granted that label by God. All who know Jesus are set apart from the world to the glory of God. And the saints are to endure, not giving in to the temptation to compromise with the world and live like those who belong to the beast.

At this point, depending on the author of the article, a reader might expect one of two things. One might expect a bigtime gospel reminder, a doubling-down on grace and hope. Or, given another author, one might expect a passionate call to obedience to the word and ways of the Lord. In point of fact, God gives us both.

How do the saints endure? Faith and obedience are central. Let’s first talk obedience, as it is the lower-hanging fruit. To love Jesus, to stand strong, to remain faithful in this life in the face of hardship requires obedience to the word of God. What will make a believer stand out in this fallen world, especially in seasons of persecution and hardship, is the believer’s willingness to obey the Lord without compromise. When the world demands that all applaud or even experiment with forms of immorality, the believer refuses. When the world demands that families compromise their schedule to the world’s values, the believer treasures gathered worship. When the world says that worship is forbidden, the believer worships anyway. Believers obey. Understand, Christian, that obedience is part of endurance.

But never should we have a legalistic existence. WE do not earn our spot in heaven by doing what is right. No, true endurance is founded in the gospel. We endure in faith. No matter how much the world wants to make us doubt, we believe. The follower of Christ is first and foremost a believer. We are believers before we are doers. We are believers, resting in the person and the perfectly finished work of Jesus. Our hope is never in ourselves or in our ability to obey. Our hope is in Christ and in Christ alone.

In the first centuries, Christians lived in a hard world. The Roman government, from time to time, would demand compromise. Believers had to rest in their faith and choose to obey God instead of Caesar. This required endurance, bearing up under pressure. In the days of the Reformation, when the church had been so corrupted as to lose its hold on Scripture, when the church had become so tied to political powers that one could not see a line between the word of the king and the word of the Lord, Christians had to endure in faith and in obedience to the recovered Holy Scripture. And today, in a world of cancel culture, sexual perversion, and mocking of morality, we are still to endure. We are to be the saints of God. We are to keep the faith, totally trusting in Jesus alone as our hope. And we are to endure in obedience, loving the Lord who saved us by obeying his holy commands.

Loving Not Your Life

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Revelation 12:10-11

10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Revelation 12 gives us a vision of epic events happening in history. We symbolically see the first coming of the Savior. We see the devil, depicted as a dragon, plotting to devour the Son of God, the promised one, before the plans of God can come to fruition. And we see that, no matter what the devil tries, he is incapable of conquering the people of the Lord.

Notice how the people of God have defeated the schemes of the devil in their lives. As verse 11 says, “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” How do the people of God survive the evils of the enemy? More than mere survival, the people of God conquer the evil one by three things. We conquer by the blood of the Lamb. We conquer by the word of our testimony. And, we conquer by loving the Lord more than our own lives, even to the point of death.

I think that the first two things are simple to grasp. The blood of the Lam is the sacrificial blood of the Savior that covers our sin, that frees us from the evil accusations of the devil. The power of the devil to accuse us before the Lord is broken because of the Savior’s life, death, and resurrection. The word of our testimony certainly includes our proclamation of trust in Jesus and his finished work.

I believe that many in the church today would embrace a claim to the blood of the Lamb. Many will happily testify of grace given us in Jesus. But I wonder of how many of us could it be said, “they loved not their lives even unto death.” I wonder if the church is teaching the people of God not to love their lives. I wonder if the church is really helping people in this soft western society to be willing to face loss, hardship, and even death for the name of the Savior.

Look at your own life. What could you do without for the name of Jesus? Be careful before you make a blanket statement. What would you be willing to let go of, were it needed, in order that you would be able to honor the Lord? Picture your favorite entertainment. Think about your kids’ sports team. Think of that vacation you want so much. Think of future financial security. Think of your health. What would you love not if it meant loving the Savior more? Perhaps this will help you to see what might have ahold on your life. Perhaps this might help you imagine where the devil himself can get handles by which he can steer you.

Now, thanks be to God that we do not save ourselves or stay saved by our goodness. I do not want to present to any of us a Christianity that rings with the cry, “Do more!” I want us to know that our whole hope for our whole eternity is bound up in what Jesus has already done—it is finished! But let us see that victory in this powerful vision was found by those who rested in the blood of the Lamb, who testified of his grace, and who loved not their own lives, even to the point of death.