God’s Purposes Will Stand

I’ve been reading through the Bible using a chronological Bible, which orders the Bible readings as much as possible in the historical order they’re believed to have occurred. Reading the Bible in this way has helped me to gain a sense of the way God’s story and human history has unfolded. Often you find parallel passages from different books grouped together as you read.

A few months ago, I reached the Gospels and was blessed at the big picture it gave me of the life of Jesus, from His conception to His ascension back to heaven. When I reached the place in the gospel accounts where the religious leaders were conspiring together to arrange the arrest and death of Jesus, what really stood out to me was their unanimous desire to avoid having Jesus arrested and put to death during the Passover feast, so as not to cause a riot. They wanted Jesus eliminated away from public attention.

Those leaders must have thought that God was on their side when Judas suddenly approached them offering to betray Jesus for payment. As Judas looked for an opportune time to carry out his treachery, he perhaps didn’t expect that opportunity to come during the Passover meal he attended with Jesus and the other apostles. What happened at that meal showed who was really in control of events, because it was Jesus Himself who initiated Judas leaving the meal to betray Him that night.

Satan, blinded by his hatred for Jesus, entered Judas to empower him in his betrayal, unknowingly playing his own part in God’s plan to redeem and deliver humankind from his evil hold.

The religious leaders may not have wanted Jesus put to death during the Passover, but God’s foreordained plan, that He would indeed die during the feast as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, was being outworked. All that the evil plans and intentions of men and the powers of darkness achieved was to hear the cry of ‘It is finished!’, as Jesus triumphed over sin and death on the cross, and opened the way for guilty sinners to find forgiveness and eternal life.

We are living in turbulent times when evil and darkness is seeming to triumph. Many are the plans in the minds of those who believe that the future of the world is in their hands. Security councils pass resolutions, and politicians hold summits, but the promise of our verse for today will forever be true. God’s purposes will stand! Perhaps that promise is especially needed by someone reading this Seed today, as evil seems to prosper around them. I’m reminded of some words from a song by Jamie Owens-Collins:

‘When your enemy presses in hard, do not fear

The battle belongs to the Lord

Take courage my friend, your redemption is near

The battle belongs to the Lord’