Acts 12:1-25 | Sometimes It Looks Like God Is Failingਨਮੂਨਾ

The message Jesus proclaims in the Gospels is that he’s bringing the kingdom of God. That it’s near. That there’s no time to lose. That with it comes the promises and blessings of God.

Acts continues the story of that message and work. Jesus, now on the throne, establishing his kingdom. And he won’t rest until Sin and all its effects are fully defeated and his kingdom reaches the ends of the earth.

It can lead you to wonder why it hasn’t quite stuck yet. Why is there still so much that seems to stand against and still defeat the kingdom of God? Here’s how the whole thing works.

Some believe the kingdom will continue to grow stronger and stronger. That the world is getting better as the presence of God’s kingdom continues to grow.

Others believe this world is in the grips of the kingdom of Darkness. That things will get much worse as evil continues to proliferate until Christ comes again.

Both are true. We live in tension between the two.

The kingdom of God has come, but like an invasion. Jesus’s first coming—with all of its power and miracles, has broken into the kingdom of darkness. Acts continues the invasion story, and Christ’s kingdom is expanding. Paul will say in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus won’t stop until all the dominion of darkness is defeated and until Death and everything else that is an enemy to God’s goodness is swallowed up in victory. This will happen when Christ comes again. But that doesn’t mean we should only expect to see the kingdom of God. The kingdom of Darkness is fighting back. Hard. Which means what we should expect to experience in this life is war between the two. Worse, we should expect to be a part of it. And war comes with suffering.

A classic analogy is to compare the kingdom of God to D-Day and VE-Day in WWII. When the Allied forces landed at Normandy on D-Day, it was a sure and certain sign that victory would be won. It was only a matter of time. But there was still a lot of horror that would be faced and fighting to be done. Jesus’s first coming is like D-Day.

Christ’s second coming in like VE-Day (that’s Victory in Europe Day), the day when the Nazi regime finally surrendered, and the War (at least in this half of the world) was won.

But between these two days, there was still a lot of fighting. Battles on both sides were won and lost. All the hopes of victory weren’t realized yet. Just think of the Battle of the Bulge, when Germany surged back. Or Hitler’s “final solution,” when so many lives were so horribly lost.

Here’s why this matters. If you think that God is failing, you’re probably looking at things the wrong way. You’re thinking that Jesus’s kingdom is fully here and now and that we’re already at VE-Day. Jesus has a different perspective. Join me! Suffer. Die. Fight. There’s kingdom work to be done, and it’s not easy. The stakes are very real. You’re not up against human enemies. You’re up against the very forces of Sin and Hell. They will not give up the fight.

All this is to say we shouldn’t be surprised when it looks like God’s promises are failing. That happens when we focus on the battle before us instead of the war. In times like this, we may never figure out why such-and-such is happening or why God’s kingdom is not advancing. But if we can pull back and see God’s whole master plan, things at least start to come into better perspective.

Sometimes God pours out on us kingdom deliverance. Sometimes he asks us to participate in it. Jesus calls his disciples witnesses. From its Greek root, martyres, we derive our English word, “martyr.” Suffering and persecution are not God failing. They’re a sign we’re still in the fight.

D-Days will come. Peter was freed. His captors were killed. And the blasphemous Herod was eaten by worms. But even when it doesn’t, VE-Day is still on the horizon. Until then, strive. Hope. Wait.