Happy Wednesday beloved, I hope you are still well and in good health. Do you think God care about all evil that is happening in the world today? If so, what is He doing about it? In this message, beloved, I trace various ways in which God comforts both human evil and even deeper spiritual evil that underlines it. Let's get started.
When discussing the end of the world, religious people use the Bible's phrase "the day of the Lord." I'm sure you're familiar with this idea of Jesus riding back on a white horse to exact His final punishment in the world—things like Armageddon or the Apocalypse. Everyone, I'm sure, wants to know exactly what will happen.
A lot of these ideas come from the Bible's last book, but to better understand them, you have to go back to the first book of the Bible. The story begins in Genesis, where God creates an amazing world and empowers humans to lead it on His behalf.
However, this enigmatic nonhuman character's promise easily tempts the humans: that they can place themselves in God's place and define good and evil on their own terms. Stories about violence, broken relationships, and other issues followed. As a result, this promise caused significant issues. Everyone is using death as a weapon to gain power now that they must defend themselves and fight for survival.
All of this leads to a story about how the city of Babylon, or "Babel" in Hebrew, was built. God knows how devastating this could be because everyone comes together to elevate themselves to the status of God: as if they were God, a whole culture redefining good and evil. As a result, God confuses their language and scatters them, turning Babylon into an icon in the Bible. The collective rebellion of humanity against God is depicted in this image.
The next time we see it is in the story of Egypt. Pharaoh the king of Egypt feels threatened by this immigrant Israelites. He starts killing all of the boys and enslaving the rest. This is truly evil. So, Egypt is like this bigger, badder Babylon. They take care of themselves at the expense of others, by redefining evil as good. So, God turns Pharaoh's evil back on him. His pride drives him forward and he is swallowed up by death.
After this great deliverance, the Israelites sing a song about how God is their warrior who liberated them from evil. The Israelites referred to this moment as, "The day." The day they were rescued from corrupt human system. And every year since then, the Israelites have celebrated the day of their liberation with the symbolic meal of a sacrificial lamb. It is called "Passover." The Israelites eventually established themselves in their own land, elect their own kings, and face new adversaries. As a result, the hope that God will once more bring "The day" to rescue Israel from new threats is rekindled every time Passover is celebrated.
Now out in the hills was the sheep herder named Amos. He was appointed by God as the prophet to announce shocking news to Israel. That God was bringing another day of the Lord against His enemies. This time, the target is Israel. Sadly, Israel's leaders have also redefined good and evil for themselves, resulting in corruption and violence.
God's people have become like Babylon. The oppressed become oppressors, Babylon seems like a trap no one can escape from. So, the day of the Lord comes upon Israel, they are conquered, taken captive into exile. And from then on, Israel suffered under the rule of continuous oppressive empires.
This is the story Jesus was born into. In His day the oppressive empire over Israel was Rome. So; The question is Jesus going to comfort Rome or make fights? No, Jesus saw the real enemy as that mysterious unhuman evil, the evil that lured Babylon, Egypt, Rome and Israel. All humanity has given in to evil's promise of power.
This what Jesus resisted alone in the wilderness when He was tempted to exploit His power for self-interest. But He did not. And after that He started to confront the effects of evil on others. He announcing that He was going to Jerusalem for Passover for a final showdown to confront the evil of Israel and Rome by dying. That feels like loosing, isn't?
Jesus was going to let evil exhaust all of its power on Him, using its only real weapon: death. Jesus knew that God's love and life were even more powerful, that He could overcome evil by becoming the Passover lamb, giving His life in an act of love. Something changes that day. When Jesus defeated evil, he opened up a new way for anyone to escape from Babylon and discover this new kind of power, this new way of being human.
Okay, something changed, is that right? But the power of evil is still alive and present and we allowing it building new versions of Babylon,. Right, so the last book of the Bible, the Revelation, points out to the future and final day of the Lord. It is when God's kingdom descends to confront Babylon the Great, this image of all the corrupt nations of the world.
The end of the world is here, Armageddon. How is Jesus going to finish off evil? Well it is not how you would expect. In the Revelation, the victorious Jesus is symbolised by the sacrificial bloody lamb and then when Jesus arrives in the end, riding His white horse to confront evil, He is bloody before the battle even starts.
Pre-bloodied? This is an odd idea or because Jesus did not seek out our blood; rather He triumphed over His enemies by dying. And the sword in His mouth is the symbol of Jesus authority to define good and evil and hold us accountable when He brings final justice once and for all.
So, in the meantime, the day of the Lord is the invitation to resist the culture of Babylon and it is a promise that God will one day free our world from corruption and bring about the new thing He has in store! #followJesue #Godisgood #Godisamazing #JesusisLord
