What Are You Waiting For?

Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.   1 Corinthians 15:25-26

Jesus demonstrated his power, but he was rejected again and again, until rejection eventually led to the cross—the ultimate expression of a community’s saying, “Go away.”

When Christ was crucified, nature convulsed as “the earth shook, [and] rocks split apart” (Matthew 27:51). The demonic powers of hell were set loose; as Jesus said, “This is . . . the time when the power of darkness reigns” (Luke 22:53). Jesus endured unspeakable suffering, and then he entered death itself. But that’s not the end of the Bible’s story.

Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Right now he is on the throne, where he will reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. That time has not yet come, so we continue to live in a world that suffers under the curse of disasters, demons, disease, and death, and we wait for the day when Christ will put every one of them under his feet.

God gave the apostle John a glimpse of that day. One day all of nature’s storms will be subdued—the sea will be “a shiny sea of glass” (Revelation 4:6). One day all demonic activity will cease—“the devil . . . [will be] thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur” (20:10). One day death will be no more—“death and the grave [will be] thrown into the lake of fire” (20:14).

The message is clear: You will face many storms in this world. You will see the enemy at work, and you will shed many tears over disease and death. But Jesus is Lord over all these things, and the day is coming when he will subdue them completely.

Until that day, Jesus has work for us to do. Jesus told the man who was delivered from the evil spirits, “Go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you” (Mark 5:19). Jesus sent the man back to be a light in a culture that didn’t want Jesus, and the man shared in the surrounding cities what Christ had done for him. That’s our calling. He sends us back as light in a dark place.

For further reading, see Revelation 20