The Living God has an uncanny way of turning inescapable defeat into glorious and unexpected victory. Let’s look at a few examples.
The Israelites are desperately trapped at the Red Sea by the pursuing Egyptian army. The civilian Israelites are on foot, encumbered with their earthly possessions and their wives and children and essentially unarmed as they face the trained chariot-army of Egypt, the super-power of their day. But by the next morning, the entire Egyptian army lies drowned and washed up on the sea shore and the Israelites are safe and sound—able to pillage the dead soldiers for
their weaponry. The parting of the Red Sea brings catastrophe to the Egyptians and life to the Israelites.In the book of Esther, Haman, the archenemy of the Jews, sets things in motion to eradicate all of the Jews who lived scattered around the vast Persian Empire. But God reverses everything. Haman ends up hanged on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, his Jewish enemy. And instead of the Persian Jew-haters rising up and killing and despoiling the Jews, 75,500 of those very enemies are killed by the Jews!
The brothers of Joseph sell him into slavery and what they could reasonably expect would be a short and agonizing life. But God uses their very actions to elevate Joseph as second only to the Pharaoh in the Egyptian government, where his brothers ultimately fall down and beg him for mercy.
In the book of Ruth, when Naomi, the faithful servant of God, loses her husband and two sons she looks forward life that is bitter and bleak. But God uses that very circumstance to make her the great-grandmother of the future King David.
With all of these accounts, (and there are many more) we could justifiably expect that we too can participate in such dramatic reversals in our own lives, but can we? Yes! The injury that rendered Joni Erikson Tada a quadriplegic became the foundation of her ministry through which thousands of people have been reached with the Gospel of Christ and the comfort of God. God uses Nick Vujicic, born with no arms and legs, to reach thousands with the Gospel through that very infirmity. There is example after example of the same kind of victory-from-defeat lives among God’s people today.
But what about Christians today in communist and Muslim countries where they are actually being put to death for their faith in Christ? Where’s the victory-in-defeat for them? Actually it’s right before our eyes in the scriptures:
Satan enters the heart of Judas who betrays Jesus to the authorities who in turn have him scourged and then crucified. The disciples see it as an obvious and final defeat, when they say, “We had hoped that He was to be the one to redeem Israel.” But the defeat was obvious and catastrophic not for Jesus, but for the devil, whose power was broken once and for all through His death and resurrection.
“. . . He Himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Hebrews 2:14-15
For the faithful in Christ, the Gospel is about eternal life with Him in the age to come. So when some communist or Muslim radical kills a person who has been walking faithfully with Christ, it’s simply an early ticket home to the God and Savior he has been yearning for all along:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” Revelation 14:13
There is simply no ultimate defeat for the faithful in Christ:
“We know that God works all things together for good to those who love him; who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
