October 2020 — pg. 13
But we know the kingdom is near, but it is not here.
So we go on to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in
heaven.” (Matthew 6:10 KJV).
We know God’s will is not always done here on earth.
Sometimes sinful people oppose it, and other times evil
demons thwart it. God wanted the Pharisees to repent
and accept John’s baptism, but they resisted His will and
did not obey (Luke 7:30). Paul wanted to visit the people
in Thessalonica but Satan hindered him (1 Thessalonians
2:18).
Engagements end in marriage, and pregnancies end in
childbirth. D-Day gave way to V-E Day. Jesus will return
to establish His kingdom over every heart and heartland.
The certain hope of victory enables us to embrace the
“fellowship of His suffering” as Paul wrote from jail to
the Philippians (Philippians 3:10 RGT). Because we know
how the story will end, we can regard our unanswered
prayers, our disappointments, and our pain as temporary
setbacks on the road to glory. Paul described his afflictions
including hunger, thirst, cold, betrayal, danger, beating,
flogging, stoning, imprisonment and four shipwrecks as
“light and momentary troubles” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
Because he had his eyes on the prize, he could see the
stumbling blocks as stepping stones.
So we pray for miracles. As the Israeli sign says, “We
don’t believe in miracles. We depend on them.”
And we also remember the words of the three Hebrew
boys as they faced the fiery furnace, “Our God is able to
save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand.
But if not, we will not serve your gods” (my paraphrase
of Daniel 3:17–18). “We know God can do it, but if not ...”
We know God does miracles, but we also know He
Himself suffered, and He may allow us to become like
Him in His suffering. And we know that whether we live
or whether we die, we are the Lord’s (Romans 14:8).
And we also know that in every situation, God is
working for the good of those who love Him (Romans
8:28). Miracles show us the kingdom is near, and
disappointments show us that it is not here. But we are
closer every day.
The truth that God is at work in every situation for
the good of those who love Him is so important that the
Bible teaches it four times. The first one comes in the story
of Joseph whose brothers hated him so much that they
sold him into slavery in Egypt. Their crime against him
began with slavery, which led to prison, which turned
into power, which resulted in the saving of thousands of
Hebrew and Egyptian lives during the famine (Genesis
37-50). In the end Joseph summarized the story when
he said, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it
for good” (Genesis 50:20 NASB). Nehemiah repeated
the lesson when he spoke of God changing curses into
blessings (Nehemiah 13:2). Paul taught it twice, once in
Romans 8:28 and again in 2 Corinthians 1:4 when he said
that God strengthens us in all our troubles, so that we in
turn can strengthen other people in any of their troubles
too.
Obviously the greatest illustration of God turning evil
into good is the cross. The worst deed that people ever did
was when the best government the world had ever known
joined with the most wonderful religion the world had
ever known. They committed the single most atrocious
atrocity the world had ever known. They killed the most
perfect man the world had ever known in the most
painful and shameful way the world had ever known, but
God turned it into the glory of our salvation. Because the
cross allows us to see God transforming the world’s worst
into heaven’s best, we can face the “not yet” as more than
conquerors, confidently anticipating the complete coming
of the kingdom (Romans 8:28–39). +
Chuck White, Ph.D., teaches at Spring
Arbor University. He has taught the
Bible in 13 different countries. He has
14 grandchildren, and he has run 60,000
miles since he turned 40.
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