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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems: 46. Victory.
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 46. Victory.
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Victory.
But there is a gladder message yet for the bells to ring out tunefully to all men. It is this—there is to be victory over pain. It will be a full victory too, with the flags flying, and the music filling all the air, and sweetest in its filling of all the heart.
There are certain foretastes of victory. The nearer we come to living in full touch with God, with intelligent knowledge of the nature and needs of our bodies, the nearer shall we come to a life free from bodily pain. This will not remove bodily pain and discomfort wholly, for we are a bit of all that has gone before. Each man is a connecting link between two generations. He may change the stream of life flowing into the next generation, and he may change a good bit the stream of life he received from his fathers, but never wholly.
Neither does this affect the pain of spirit through the contact of culture with men and conditions around us. The nearer God one gets and the closer to His ideal for us he grows, the greater is the pain over the ravages of sin, but the steadier too is the faith that sees through to the end of victory.
There is, through Jesus, victory in pain over pain. The hurt remains, but the sting has been extracted. With Him alongside, close up, and the clearer vision of the great purpose, and through to the end, the pain of pain lessens and softens, even while the outer pain remains.
Then there is the final victory. Jesus' resurrection is called a first fruits by Paul. It is a wondrous conception of a winsome truth. First fruits is the language of harvest. The first fruits is the beginning of the harvest; the great crop remains to be gathered.
There has been a harvest of pain; there is to be a harvest of painlessness. There has been a harvest of sorrow; there will be one of joy. There has been a great harvest of death, of separation, of breakings; there is to be a greater harvest of life, of reunion, of tying up all the old breaks into knots that no fingers will ever undo.
The harvest of pain and sorrow, of death and breakings, has been the result of sin's sowing. The new harvest of painless, joyous, reunited life is through the sowing by Jesus of His own life down among men. Jesus is greater than sin. The coming harvest will be so great as to make the others forgotten. The work that Jesus finished on the cross and the resurrection morning is to be finished in all the earth. The first fruits is to be followed by a great full fruits.
The Bible reaches a thrilling climax in the closing chapter of its closing book. One can believe anew in the divine guidance of the men who put these books of the Bible together as he comes to the climax of surpassing splendor at its close.
The new glory is revealed as a new city. The city has been the superlative of human life. There bad has been worse, and good best. The momentum of man's activities has drawn to the city centre the leadership of life. On the bad side the city has become a condensed epitome of darkness and poverty, of pain and misery, of sin and distress. Here in John's great vision it becomes the glorified condensation of all that God's love has planned for man.
The presence of God is its glorifying, transforming, radiating atmosphere. "The Lamb is the light thereof." Death has been cast out. There is no mourning, nor crying, nor pain. All the former things are passed away. And in a fine touch it is said that God Himself "shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." That word "away" might better read "out"; "shall wipe out every tear." The tear forced out under pain's pressure shall be annihilated, for pain itself has been wiped completely out.
"And there shall be no curse any more, and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein; and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light; and they shall reign unto the ages of the ages."
The old order has completely passed away. The victory over pain is final and full through Jesus.