Revelation 20:1-15
If
you don’t know it by now, I’m a huge Michigan State sports fan. Not
surprisingly, I believe that Tom Izzo is one of the best college basketball
coaches active today. What is his secret to success? Accountability.
At
the beginning of every school year he has all of his players write down their
goals – individual, team, academic and off court. He then collects those goals
and during the year if he sees that a player isn’t working towards his goals,
Izzo will pull him aside and talk to him about it.
Consider
Revelation 20. God keeps us all accountable. First, the angel bound Satan for a
thousand years. Then after being released for a little while, Satan is thrown
into the lake of fire. Finally, anyone whose name isn’t found in the book of
life is thrown into the lake of fire.
Some
of the images in this chapter could come right out of a Stephen King novel. But
let’s think about this, not in a literal sense, but as a piece of the big
picture of the Bible. If we don’t get bogged down in the details of it, what
can we learn about our Heavenly Father? I would suggest these three things.
First,
He is just; and He is true to His character. His yes is yes and His no is no. What
this means is that He must judge evil. He must judge the unrighteous. He must
judge us. He must keep us accountable. I don’t particular care for this lesson,
but it’s there, and it’s true. However, there is Good News to go with this.
Because
He is just, our sins have to be paid for. He did this by using the sacrificial
system as a metaphor to show the Israelites in a tangible way the need for a
sacrifice; the need for atonement; the need for redemption. The only way to pay
for our sins was with a pure lamb, a spotless lamb – His son Jesus.
Therefore,
the second lesson from this chapter is that God loves us so much that he
sacrificed His one and only son so that we might know Him; so that we might not
be thrown into the lake of fire; so that we might spend eternity with Him.
The
final lesson is that God wins! He wins over Satan; over evil; over death. He
wins in the end! Why is that important for us? Consider what John wrote in his
first letter: “Greater is He who is in
you than he who is in the world”. Ultimately, there is victory for us.
Jesus will return.
Tom
Izzo is known as Mr. March because of his record during March Madness. He knows
how to win when it counts. He builds his team on accountability to help them be
better; to help them win when it counts. God does the same thing for us. He
keeps us accountable and paid the price for our sins. Because He wins, we win
too.
So,
who’s keeping you accountable?
https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/niv/Rev.20.1-Rev.20.15
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