Daily Archive

Jesus is ruling and reigning. His kingdom is increasing around the world. You understand, don’t you, that Satan is a defeated foe, right? Yes, we are to watch out for him. He is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but he’s defeated. He’s already lost. His head was crushed at the cross when he bruised Christ’s heel.

Jesus is ruling and reigning, and through the gospel, Satan is on the retreat.  He grows more and more furious, but he can only do what God allows him to do. RC Sproul reminded us that the devil is God’s devil. It is not that we have two equal forces or a force with Satan that’s almost equal to God, and it’s not as if there is a battle going on at any moment that scales could tip and God could lose.

You know what God’s going to lose? Nothing. Ever. He never has. He never will. He didn’t lose when Adam and Eve fell. He didn’t lose when Jesus died. He’s not going to lose to Satan or to anyone. That’s simply impossible. He tells Jesus and Christ assures us in the gospels of “all that the Father has given me, I will not lose one.” Not one.

There are those who will tell you that you can lose your salvation. John MacArthur said, “If you could lose your salvation, you would.” If it was left up to us to maintain our salvation, we could not be saved. You see, we don’t save ourselves. We don’t keep ourselves. We’re not going to glorify ourselves. We didn’t even birth ourselves. This is all a work of God’s grace. He’s the one who is doing this. He is sovereign.

As we serve Him, we understand we were children of wrath by nature. We were in that kingdom of evil and of destruction. We’ve been transferred to the kingdom of life and light. We have been born again. We’ve been brought to kneel before Christ and to praise Him as Lord and as Savior.

If God is for us, what can man do to us? If God is for us, what can the devil do to us? And people say, “Well, look at Job, ask him.” Yes, and you know what Job would say? “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” That’s it.

Now, Job did suffer from what some of us suffer from, and that is stupid friends who think they know the Bible but don’t know the mind of God. And while a lot of what Job’s friends told him was true, it didn’t apply to his circumstances, and God at the end of that story rebukes his friends for what they said and what they did. Because they didn’t see God as sovereign, as using circumstances, especially difficult circumstances, to conform us to the image of Christ, to remind us of our need to repent, because we all will likewise perish.