Daily Lesson for December 29, 2020

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Revelation chapter 7 verses 9 through 14a:

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal.

We have come through a great ordeal in 2020. "Hard pressed," as St. Paul said, "but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair," we are still here, hanging on. We have endured much in not only this past year, but these past years; and we are still hanging on.

The book of Revelation is written for and to ones like us. It is a vision -- the Greek word is "apocalypso"; and the vision is of the end. There is a reward for faithfulness in the end. Those who endure will stand before the throne of the Lamb.

Peter Storey, a former Duke professor and the right hand man for Desmond Tutu in the days of the anti-apartheid struggle, visited East Berlin in the days just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He saw a little church near the Wall with a small, and understated sign out front. "The Lamb wins," it said.

In the end, the Lamb, who seemed to lose, will win. And those who endure for the sake of the Lamb will stand before its throne. We will win also.

"And the ones who endure to the end shall be saved."

We shall be saved; and, finally, we shall be safe as well.

Let us remember this when times get tough in 2021 also.

Ryon Price is the Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.