Latest / The Daily Word / September 9 – Faithful in the In-Between
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whenever you are joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes, and it is my pleasure and privilege to pastor our Kotaba campus. I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode where we're going to be doing a devotion out of the New Testament portion of our life Bible journal reading plan. Life life. Life Journal Bible Reading Plan. There we go. And today is September the ninth and we are on Revelation chapter fourteen. Now I hope this doesn't seem irreverent to you, but I I grew up watching wrestling and I'm not talking about like the you know Olympic sport with mouth guards and leotods, no, I mean like wrestling. I'm talking about like big buff men that would like cover themselves of baby oil and then go pretend to fight in front of cameras. You know, you know, the the good stuff. Now I don't watch much wrestling these days, but a few years ago I I had a little phase where I got back into it and I wasn't just watching it. I was also listening to podcasts. People talking about like behind the scenes stuff from when I was a kid and I was watching it when I was younger. And one of the things that they mentioned on one of those podcasts was that when they were building an event card, when they were like booking the matches for a night, they didn't put all their best matches back to back. And there was a reason for that. They wanted to strategically put between the big matches some what they called let up matches. matches that like weren't totally inconsequential or anything, but they weren't like huge emotional investments. Matches that that would be entertaining to the fans, but that wouldn't like like exhaust them emotionally. Like a person can only go and and scream at the top of their lungs for so long. And if you burnt someone out early in the night, by the time they got to the main event, the big fight brother. You know, everybody in the arena would be too tired to give it the energy that they would that they would hope to have surrounding a main event. And again, I hope this isn't irreverent, but I see how the Lord does something almost a little bit similar to that in chapter 14 of the book of Revelation. I wouldn't say let up, but like the Lord, like. put this chapter here and I feels like it's letting us breathe a little bit. That's that's the only comparison with wrestling. That's it. So I hope I hope that's not irreverent. That's the only comparison. It's just what where my mind goes, Lord help me. But I say that because chapter fourteen has a little bit of a different pace and tone to it than the preceding Chapters. See, the previous chapters described the conquest and the rule of the dragon and the beast, and it pointed to the oppression that God's people will suffer in the tribulation. But this chapter gives us a little bit of a break from all that heaviness and a reminder that ultimately the righteous will triumph. This chapter starts with John seeing the lamb surrounded by the faithful who have followed him, noting that the These bear the name of Jesus and the Father, like written on their forehead, which is a complete and total contrast to those who took the mark of the beast. Jesus and his followers they stand on top of Mount Zion, and they have a firsthand view of what comes next, which is a series of angels who come to deliver messages to the earth. there's a group of three angels. The first one Calling for men to fear God, the second one declaring the fall of Babylon, and the third one declaring judgment on those who have followed the beast. And then finally, at the end of this chapter, we see the imagery of the reaping of the earth and the reaping of the grapes of the earth that are cast into the winepress of God's wrath. And all that points to the brutality of the battle of Armageddon, and the Lord ultimately putting an End to the reign of the dragon and the beast. Ultimately, this chapter ends showcasing the victory of the Lord and by extension of the faithful. And what I want us to focus on for this devotion is verse 12, and that lands right after like that third angel comes and declares judgment. On those that follow the beast. It's right after that, but it's before the actual judgment starts happening. And it says this, I'm reading out of the NIV, Revelation 14, 12. This calls for patient endurance for the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. See, this verse points out the fact that we as believers have a need for patient endurance as we keep God's commands and we remain faithful to him. And when we zoom out, and we see that this verse not only falls between like the angel messenger declaring judgment on God's enemies and like that judgment actually happening, like this whole chapter kind of also falls in and the overall narrative arc of the book of Revelation, between like the the the conquest of the enemy and the promise of his falling and the enemy actually falling. And we can see That there is this tension that we often kind of live in because often we will have areas in our lives where we are standing in the gap between a promise and an answer. That that varies for all of us. God makes promises to us in scripture, God makes promises to us personally. And there's often this this waiting period between the promise being made and the answer being revealed. Like think about it, like why would God need to promise something to you? He's just gonna drop in your lap immediately. Like he he could just do it for you and he wouldn't have to promise it to you. But pr promises they they look different. Maybe it's a promise for a a better job, a a physical, mental or Emotional healing, maybe it's the salvation of a loved one or the opportunity to step fully into what God has called you to do in your life, regardless of what it looks like. Let me encourage you that what you need while you're waiting is patient endurance. the Greek word for endurance is the Greek word hippomony, and it's the same exact word that we find in James 1. two through four. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, endurance. Same word that was used in Revelation. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Now I can tell you that there have been seasons in my life Where the only thing I needed to do was endure and persevere. And I can also tell you that it was not necessarily encouraging for people to remind me of that while I was in that season. In those seasons, often what we're looking for is an answer to how to get out of that season of waiting. We aren't really wanting people to just tell us to, yeah, you're doing a good job, just keep waiting. I know that may not be the most encouraging thing for me to tell you today, but also That doesn't make it any less true. Waiting on a promise is often filled with with discomfort. It's often filled with pain. But sometimes all there is to do is wait it out and be faithful. Just like the Lord's plans for Armageddon can't be rushed. Neither can his plan to fulfill the promise in your life that he has given you. So be patient. Endure, keep his commandments and remain faithful. Now let's talk personal application with this. I think it's just a conversation with the Lord today and ask him, Lord, are there any areas in my life where I've been crying out and asking you for immediate change when I should just be patiently enduring? Are there things you have for me but that have to wait on your timing? Lord, if if if there are those things, can you give me peace? About enduring those things and contending for them, that's going to be our application. Are there things? Katie, give me peace and patience for those things, Lord. Let's pray. Father God, I just thank you that you have such good things for us. I thank you, Lord, that every promise that you give us is yes and amen. We declare so badly. Be it even if we have to declare so be it for a long stretch of time, even if we have to endure, even if we have to be patient, even if we have to stretch in that season, we thank you that the promise is worth waiting on. Thank you, Jesus, that you love us. And Lord, I thank you that you're making promises to us if if we're living our lives with nothing to place our hope in. I pray that you would begin speaking to us and show us what it is you want to do in our lives. I thank you that you do make promises and that you are faithful and you keep those promises. You're such a good God. Lord, we love you and we thank you. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.