Romans 13:12
Good News Translation
(GNT)
12 The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing
the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in
the light.
When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at
Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and
very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His
soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all
the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that
he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very
most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all
these years later.
I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember
wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck
fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would
judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t
ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no
longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand
what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes
me ready in spite of my sinful nature.
Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either
his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for
fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years
later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women
of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their
own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in
and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern
outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for
fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed
like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and
us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by
Christ’s amazing grace.
Thank You, Lord, for
giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in
our day.
[i]
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html
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