26.12 | Victory
Revelation 20
'Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.’
Revelation 20:14
One sports day, when I was around nine or ten, I won the skipping race. I’d not done a lot of skipping, but I was a decent runner. And somehow, on this particular race on our bumpy school field, I hit a magnificent rhythm of rotating rope and falling feet that led me to victory.
Victory is the theme of the close of the Scriptures. Because the Story that the Bible tells us—from Genesis right through to these pages of Revelation—includes humankind being locked in a gruelling battle with real opponents. It is war—Good vs Evil, with our own souls often part of the battlefield. And these pages in Revelation give names to some of the very real enemies that have caused such pain.
Yesterday we saw the destruction of the beast and the false prophet—emblematic of every broken civilisation. In the Bible, ‘the world’ often describes the structures and ideologies and powers that are generated when humans get together and make societies without God. Revelation has pointed to these as empires. The tale of history is a long story of empires that have risen and fallen, each with their own poisonous concoction of vanity and hierarchy and oppression and dysfunction.
For every such broken empire will end.
Today we see the hurling into the lake of fire of Satan himself, following this millennial period.1 He leads those who oppose God against the people of God, but is thrown down also into the lake of fire. Every deception, every way he has messed with the minds and ways of humanity from the very beginning. Every time he has whispered words of worthlessness or destruction or despair. Every demonic plot and ploy that has wreaked such havoc—every single such evil destroyed.
For the devil and all his work will certainly end.
And finally, Death and Hades are thrown into the lake. Every sickness that has taken loved ones from us, everything of decay, everything of sickness and disease and weakness and pain.
For Death itself will certainly end.
Victory. Consider this, dear friends. For the joy of victory is proportionate to the scale of the enemy. What we read here is no skipping race victory, but the decisive defeat of our greatest enemies, and the deepest places of our pain and hurt. Bring these words to your heart. For the destruction that is spoken of here is not detached from the pains that you have carried. It is not separate from the events and ideologies and words and sicknesses that have led to your life being marred by pain. It is not held apart from every injustice and inequality, every moment of oppression enforced and dignity stripped. It is a vision of God’s decisive and permanent victory into every one of the deepest enemies of humankind, in a victory that it as cataclysmic as it is permanent.
For the Story is reaching its finale. And the final word is
Victory.
Reflect:
What memories and situations come to mind as you read this? Bring these to the Lord. He is so kind, so compassionate. And recall these truths to your soul: that this pain is temporary, but that there is a Coming Day, promised in these words, when every such enemy will be defeated, unto the perfection of peace and the undoing of death itself.
Pray:
Father,
I cannot bring You every pain
And all my sorrow,
And yet,
I can bring You these ones
That I carry in my heart today.
Father,
Hold my weeping soul;
Heal me with gentle love;
Rain heavenly showers on where I have become brittle and dry.
And Father,
Send Your Holy Spirit,
To speak truth to my innermost places—
That every enemy that has battered this life
Will be defeated,
And that the eternal story in which I then walk
Will all be joy,
And will all be light,
And will all be love.
For, in Jesus my Lord,
All is Victory.
In His Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
Zechariah 9-11 | Psalm 149
Scholars are divided on the meaning of the Millennium. It is usually taken either as a literal thousand year time of victory, preceding the permanent victory to come, or it is understood as a metaphor for the current age in which we find ourselves.