Even So Come

My friend Jim didn’t know where he was. That fact was painfully evident when the ball was snapped, and he stayed in his three-point stance at right guard. The play was in full motion, but there he was, motionless. Apparently, some of the padding in his helmet had fallen out and he had taken several blows to the head. Jim was escorted to the sideline to regain his faculties and the game went on. Helmets are not an optional part of a football players uniform. Without them serious, sometimes permanent injury can take place. In Jim’s case it was only temporary, we suspect, and he went on to live a happy and healthy life.

Now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the necessities of a helmet in the world of sports or on the battlefield. To protect the head, and subsequently, the brain is crucial when dangerous situation’s present themselves. The ability to think clearly is reliant on a healthy mind. Most of the dark paths we tend to walk down are a result of a moment when we were not thinking correctly. Being impaired by alcohol or drugs is an example. But right thinking in a wrong world requires a particular type of helmet.

The apostle Paul saw the necessity of this when he directed the soldier of Christ to put on the helmet of the hope of salvation in reference to the last days. The Bible, though, does not use the word hope in the same way that the world understands it. Our use of the word hope carries with it the possibility that what we hope for will not happen. When the Bible uses the word hope it is a fixed assurance that it will happen because the Lord promised. Hope is a forward-looking word toward an event that has not happened yet. Looking carefully at the context, the salvation that Paul refers to in this verse is our physical deliverance out of this present world. He has not destined us to wrath. He promised he would physically rescue us from the wrath that will certainly come down on this earth in the last half of the Great Tribulation. The return of Christ for his church is called the Blessed Hope.

It is easy to become disillusioned and discouraged in these last days. The Bible calls them perilous times and we are watching them unfold before our very eyes. What is to be our response as believers? If we allow our thought patterns to follow those of the world then all that is left for us to do is dig a hole and bury ourselves with our sorrows. The Bible, though, calls us to be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ. If our minds are set on Christ, and our eyes are focused on the heavens for his return, no storyline from the nightly news will dishearten us. The world we are witnessing is as flimsy as a castle made of cards and as fragile as a papier-mâché crocodile. The more this world crumbles around us the more we look for an eternal kingdom. The Lord’s return will result in the crushing of all world governments. Keep that helmet of hope firmly in place and nothing but joyful anticipation will fill your heart. He’s coming in the clouds.

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

Revelation 1:7