Spoiler Alert!

If you don’t like spoilers, you may feel nervous about what I’m going to say here. Relax, I’m probably not going to tell you anything you don’t already know – but they ARE spoilers, they DO tell us how events end, many of them in unexpected and surprising ways…

Jesus is tested with hard questions – His answers silence His enemies

Jesus is arrested – The Jewish court can’t find a crime to charge Him

Jesus is in the Roman court – He is pronounced innocent multiple times

Jesus is abused and crucified – He asks God to forgive them

Jesus dies – He is raised on the third day as He promised

Jesus’ tomb is empty – Many people see Him alive

Jesus ascends to heaven – He promises to rule and return

People sin – Believers are redeemed by Jesus’ sacrifice

People reject Jesus – They are judged if they do not repent

People die – They are raised on the last day to be rewarded

Biblical history shows us how things end, and they aren’t always how we expect. They aren’t always how things start out or how they look like they are going to end. This makes it possible and reasonable for us to look at things through the eye of faith: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Because we have seen in Scripture how things always end in keeping with God’s plans and promises – however unlikely the end may seem – we can have the hope and expectation that they will end for us as God has planned and promised. In the words of 2 Corinthians 4:18, “…we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen…” God has shown us how things end, and it isn’t what we might expect simply by looking at our temporary physical world.

Although spoilers may rob us of the surprise of an unexpected ending, they do make it possible for us to prepare for that ending. We know how all this is going to end and that’s a good thing. How will we prepare?

“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness…” 2 Peter 3:11  

dd