Key Verses: “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to
everyone according to what he has done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and
the End. Blessed are those who wash
their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go
through the gates into the City.” --Revelation
22:12-14
“And I heard a
loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men, and He
will live with them. They will be His
people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or
crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” --Revelation 21:3-4
When I was in
elementary school, back in the sixties, teachers would sometimes use film
strips to help teach a lesson. A film
strip was not a movie. It was a very
long strip of developed film that was run through a projector which projected
each picture on the strip, individually, onto the screen in the front of the
classroom. The film was accompanied by a
recording with a narrator. When it was
time to change the picture, there would be a little sound, like a bell ring, to
signal the person operating the projector that it was time to move on to the
next picture. The operator would turn a
little knob so that the film strip would advance through the machine to the
next picture. Viewers could only see the
picture that was projected, even though the whole film was actually present in
the machine.
This is the
illustration that I like to use to explain the difference between how God sees
things and how we see them: the
difference between time and eternity. We
live in the individual pictures. The
story of the world is the entire film strip.
Our story may take up one, two or three pictures in time, but not the
entire film strip.
God, however,
holds the entire film strip, from end to end, in His hands. From Genesis to Revelation, it’s all there,
every picture in its place. When He
makes a promise He is only sharing with us what He already knows and sees
because it is in a future picture, even though we, in our own individual places
on the film cannot see it. He is assuring us of
what He sees further on, even though we may not experience it directly. We can be sure that God knows what He’s
talking about and promises because He can already see it taking place. When John refers to Jesus as, “the Lamb that
was slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev.
13:8) this statement is not a contradiction in tenses, it is a fact
because, in God’s view he can see the beginning and the end at the same time.
The prophets
could speak with certainty of the coming of Messiah because they believed God
talked about events further down the film strip from where the prophets were located.
In fact God shared with them glimpses
into the life of Christ that we have just explored. Now, John has been given a glimpse of how the
film strip ends. He shares what he has
seen to give us hope, in our little story, that God is in control. What John glimpsed is events that will
transpire in our future.
Over and over
in this devotional, we have been reassured that God is in control, even when it
looked like chaos and defeat were all around.
Jesus was born at just the right time.
Jesus was taken to Egypt, just in time.
Jesus’ ministry was just at God’s right time. The artist Creator, God, placed Him just
where and when He needed to be for just the right purpose to make His tapestry
the most meaningful and beautiful.
Now, it will
end at just the right time and when it does, all will be put right again as it
was originally intended to be. He has
promised that suffering will end and that all will be restored because He can
see it in the end picture, even though we may not. This is why Jesus emphasized over and over
trusting in Him and saying over and over again, “If you love Me, you will obey
Me, (because you trust Me)” (John
14:21) It isn’t as important that we
trust what we know as much as we trust what He knows and sees. That’s what matters. When we wander away and or disobey, it’s like
garbling up the film. The story is still
there, but the strip needs to be straightened and smoothed out in order to go
through the machine properly.
He is the
beginning and the end of the film. He is
the First and the Last. He holds it all
in His hands. He sees a time when their
will be no more suffering and nothing to fear.
He sees the time of peace. When
we pass from this life, we step out of the film into His eternity. Time is passed. Even “forever,” is a time concept. We will just be with Him, in His presence,
without end. What we can be assured of
is that when this creation is done, He will say again, as He did in the Garden,
“It is good,” and it will be so.
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