Saturday – August 26, 2023

Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus

Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)

Revelation 12:13 records the renewed fury of Satan against the Jewish people: “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.” As the old saying goes, “A dragon can’t change its scales” (okay, that is not an old saying, but I am old, and I just said it). Satan is fully evil, and his ancient antagonism for the nation that gave the world the Messiah will never diminish. Satan hates Israel, God’s people chosen to provide the Messiah, and he hates that Messiah, Jesus, Who was Jewish. Furthermore, Jewish believers will be evangelizing the world in the Tribulation period (Revelation 7:1-8; 14:1-5). As we have already studied, the “short time” (Revelation 12:12) left for Satan infuriates him to “great wrath,” an intensification of his malice. Moreover, his activity will be entirely limited to “earth.” This focus will factor into this time that Jesus called “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).