And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army. Revelation 19:19
In the fall of 1939, a powerful force of German soldiers and tanks swept into the Polish city of Przemysl and quickly overcame the few Polish soldiers left to defend the city. As the huge tanks roared down the city’s main concourse, a few Polish soldiers hidden in a bunker took a few shots at those tanks. Their bullets bounced harmlessly off the armour plating. The Nazi gunners never even looked sideways or fired back; they knew that the pathetic little garrison was incapable of doing them any harm. For the time being, at least, they were invincible, and nothing could stop their progress or prevent them from achieving total victory. Their position, for a short time, was a bit like that of the coming of the One on the white horse to destroy the armies of the world.
Of course, we can’t really relate the coming conquest of the Lord Jesus with the invasion of Poland by the Nazis. For one thing, Christ’s conquest will be in righteousness, and his cause will be totally just. The Nazi’s conquest was cruel, unjustified, and wicked. For another, the Lord Jesus will conquer His enemies once for all, whereas the Nazis were eventually chased in shame out of Przemysl by the Russians. We can read in the history books of the captivity of Przemysl, although we can’t entirely trust the record, which might well be biased. We can also read of the demolition of the armies of earth, but the report in Scripture is faithful and true. This great prophetic event is more sure of happening than if it happened ten years ago and we could read of it in history books. As Christians, we sometimes feel we are oppressed and downtrodden, and facing defeat. But we have the witness of Scripture that we cannot be defeated, and that the Lord Jesus our Saviour will soon sweep us up to victory with Him.
Our text tells of the beast and his allies gathering together to make war against Christ. We wonder how they could possibly have had any expectation of victory. The beast would surely know who his Adversary was, and could not hope to challenge the God of Heaven. And yet, his hatred of God was such that he was willing to drag earth’s armies to perdition with him. You and I face just such a cruel and hateful enemy today, although our daily struggles are rather less dramatic. Satan is a foe who knows he is facing defeat but still does all he can to rob God of glory and to frustrate God’s children. But, just as in today’s text, his designs are eventually doomed to defeat. In fact, Satan is already defeated, and we should spend more time praising God for the victory than worrying about Satan’s wiles.
Read the Book. We win! Our adversary is the eternal loser. Take comfort and hope from our Lord’s program for the ages. -Jim MacIntosh