Word of Encouragement (12/22/2021)
After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, 2 for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants” (Rev. 19:1-2).
The heavenly multitude is praising God for His judgment on the great prostitute, Babylon. She was judged for corrupting the earth with her immorality and shedding the blood of God’s servants. In this act of divine judgment, God has finally answered the prayer of the martyred souls under the heavenly altar, which we read in 6:10: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (We can see that “those who dwell on the earth” and “Babylon” are identified with each other, the former as the instrument of the latter.)
What was God’s response at that time? “Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been” (6:11). The “little longer” has passed and the day appointed for God to avenge their blood on Babylon has finally arrived.
There is an important lesson to be learned here: God’s ultimate answer to our prayer for justice, as well as other desires of our hearts, will be given on the last day. It’s not that we will not see any justice in this life or any magnificent answers to our prayers. God is gracious and merciful, and He does not turn deaf ears to the cries of our hearts when we pray in His beloved Son’s name. But He loves us too much just to give us what we want out of our limited knowledge and feeble imagination about what is good. Knowing all that He has in store for us, God wants to give us what is best. But this world is not worthy of it. For us to possess it and enjoy it to the fullest, we need to be in a new heaven and a new earth in our glorified bodies and spirits.
I hope you can see how helpful it is to understand this timetable of God’s. If all things happen according to God’s timetable and God’s ultimate answer to the deep desires of our hearts will be given on the last day, we should be able to relax and wait for God’s appointed time with patience through all of life’s dark tunnels of uncertainty. We will be able to keep our hearts’ tendency to worry and fret in check and pray more fervently, “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”
This heavenly-mindedness will help us realize that even the wonderful blessings of God that we want and enjoy in this life are but shadows of the more glorious things to come, or just an infinitesimally small portion of them. If we know that, we will not be so enamored by, or attached to, them. And if we can be like that, we will be able to enjoy them more because we will not be wasting our time and energy trying to keep them just a little longer. And if we can enjoy them more, we will be more grateful to God for them instead of making an idol of them.
What are the challenges you are facing these days? Let us endure them with patience, trusting that the Lord will make all things good in His time!