The True Victory-Lent 17, 2022

All seemed lost.

Resuming our study of Revelation in 40, let’s pick up where we were before our Sabbath. The faithful witness of two of God’s best and brightest ended in a seeming triumph of evil as they were left for dead in the public square of sin. Among the infidels, there was gloating, a gift exchange, and celebrating all around! And all that scoffing “Where was God? Where is your God now?”

Don’t worry. He’s just getting started.

Revelation 11:11 “But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. 2 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.”

Resurrection beats death.
Every time.
There’s nothing, absolutely nothing,
that anyone in the world can do to stop it.

Revelation 11:13 At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

Hey infidels, be afraid. Fear this. Their terror is, in a sense, backdoor glory to God. Their terror acknowledged God’s power. They couldn’t help themselves but acknowledge that resurrection vindicated the two witnesses and everyone else who gazed in a gleeful gaper’s delay, spiked the football, and scoffed up a storm was in deep trouble.

God wasn’t absent,
He was just biding His time
to prove a greater victory,
and to the infidels, theirs was a demise proved certain.

Revelation 11:14 The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon. 15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.” 16 And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. 18 The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small– and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

The true victory celebration is in heaven.
Resurrection triumphs over death.
It all started with Jesus’ resurrection!
Our hero is none other than God Himself.

Thoughts for today:

Revelation 11:19 “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm.” Why the ark of the covenant?

Think about all the various pride parades in today’s public square. How do you think God feels about all that?

The victory of heaven is both past and future. What secured it in the past? What secures it for the future?

How is the resurrection key?

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2022 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.