Hallelujah!

Welcome to day 99.  Today’s reading is Revelation 19:1 – 20:15

Read the Bible passage here or listen to the audio file below.

From Otago University New Testament Professor Paul Trebilco…

When we look at the world all around us, it’s easy to despair. Things certainly aren’t right as they are. Will bad things always keep happening? Will evil triumph?

Revelation 19-20 speaks of God’s future judgment – that a day will come when God will judge the world. Those whose names are written in the book of life will be given eternal life. Those whose names are not written in that book will not be saved. And the powers that oppose God – Satan and Death itself – will be defeated, judged and condemned. In fact the decisive event has already happened in the cross – when Satan lost the decisive battle.

So the passage shows us that the future – and the eternal goal of all things – is in God’s hands. We can know that God will work his purposes out for our world.

In the face of evil and suffering here and now, we can in faith, be confident that God has the world and its future in his hands. We can know that God is righteous. As Revelation 19:2 says, God’s “judgments are true and just”, and Jesus here is called “Faithful and True”.

In the light of this, the key thing for us is to be part of all that God is doing now – to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem for this world. And we can also join in the praise of heaven now. For in Revelation 19:6-7 we read:

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory”.

We can join in that praise of heaven in the present – in fact in the face of tragedy and evil in our world, giving glory to God and repeatedly reminding ourselves that “the Lord our God the Almighty reigns” is what God calls us to do.

Paul

Filed under: Week 20 - Paul Trebilco