To Encourage You

1 Samuel 2:9 “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness for not by might shall a man prevail.”

In the end, everything will be made right.  That should encourage the heart of anyone who is suffering unjustly today.  This world is a place where justice is fleeting. We see evil rewarded and goodness penalized, for we are living in an age that the prophet Isaiah spoke about in these words: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).  This is particularly grievous to those who love and follow Christ, for they have had their eyes opened to the truth that God alone is good, and His Word gives the perfect standard against which goodness and evil are measured.  Yet, all around us we see that standard violated with impunity.  It’s a world where “might makes right,” or so it seems.  Yet, in the end, the God Who is good has promised us in the words above, that the Lord will guard the feet of His faithful ones, but the wicked will be cut off in darkness and it is not by might that any man will prevail.  In the end, it won’t be the most affluent, the most privileged, the politically powerful, or the socially acceptable that will prevail. No, in the end, it is the feet, i.e., the way, trod by the saints of God that will be proved right, and it is those who have followed the Way, the Truth, and the Life that will hear “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:21).  It is these people that Jesus warned with these words: “Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles . . .Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” But it was to these that He also said, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:17-22). 

I think of those suffering for their faith in North Korean, Eritrean, Chinese and other prisons run by atheistic or anti-Christian governments around the world.  I think of those who have suffered debilitating diseases yet have remained faithful, in spite of their circumstances, to the God Who has promised them that He loves them. And I think of those who look around them, and like righteous Lot, are “greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked” and who “was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:7-8). But it is those faithful saints that God’s eyes are upon, and it is those who are being guarded by Him as they walk in the path of eternal life, no matter how things seem. 

On the other hand, it is the wicked, those who have rejected God and His Word, who are headed for true darkness although they mistake “darkness for light and light for darkness” in this fallen world.  It is not the might of man that will prevail in the end.  No, it is the almighty, sovereign, and eternal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that will make things truly right in the end. 

So, whose side are you on today?  Are you walking with the majority who live as if God doesn’t exist in a world where it appears as if evil often wins, or are you trusting in the Son of God no matter how things seem? You see, the One Who is Sovereign over all has implored us to “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14).  Are you walking in the way of His faithful ones, for it is only the way of the faithful ones that, in the end, will prevail.