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.)
Jesus is absolutely authoritative, as revealed in Revelation 6. “The lamb” (verse 1) is authoritative over world leaders (verses 1-2), war (verses 3-4), and famine (verses 5-6). This authority extends to death, both physical and spiritual. Revelation 6:7-8 says, “And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast [angel] say, ‘Come and see.’ And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.” “Death” represents physical death; “Hell” represents spiritual, eternal death. As Hebrews 9:27 reminds us, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” The cause of both is sin, “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23b). The scope of this Tribulation loss is staggering: “the fourth part” would be two billion deaths in a short time, based on the present world population. Some might scoff at death by “the beasts of the earth,” but “pestilences” (Matthew 24:7) are spread by creatures such as rats, which carry at least 35 different diseases, including bubonic plague (which killed at least one third of Europe’s population in the 1300’s) and typhus (which has killed at least 200 million since the 1600’s. Remember, it is not Jesus Who sins; it is man, and it is man’s sin that is responsible for both physical and spiritual death.