We’re not told why Mattathias moved his family from
Jerusalem to Modein but we are told that he was greatly grieved by the apostasy
of the people of Judah and Jerusalem and the desolation of the temple. He had to know that they would come to Modein
also and enforce the edict of the king to worship his gods. Mattathias, as a leader of the Jewish
community there, is approached and offered a bribe to go along and set an
example for the rest of the Jews in Modein.
Mattathias is a man of conviction and covenant and he will not be either
bribed or forced to abandon the Lord. He
is moved to righteous anger, as Phinehas (Numbers 25.1-9) had been in the time
of the Exodus, when he sees a fellow Israelite offering sacrifice to the gods
of Antiochus. When he kills the man he knows
that he must flee and calls those who are zealous for the law and support the
covenant to come away with him.
Peter got it right yesterday but got it horribly wrong
today. Yesterday he believed Jesus was
the Christ, the Son of the living God, today he believes he knows better about
what it means to be Messiah than Jesus does.
Remember that in yesterday’s reading Jesus told them to tell no one what
they knew? This is the reason, everyone thought
they knew what all this Messiah thing would look like and no one got it
right. Jesus refers to Peter as satan, a
stinging rebuke except that if you think about the temptations in the wilderness
after the baptism by John you’ll remember that satan offered Jesus kingdoms
without suffering as well. We are called
to take up our cross and follow Jesus, our lives are not our own, they belong
to our creator, the lover of our souls, our redeemer. We aren’t to act as if this life doesn’t matter,
we are to understand the difference between this life and the life to come, one
is temporary the other is eternal.
John sees an angel come down from heaven with a key to bottomless
pit and a great chain. This angel takes
authority over the dragon and seals him in the pit for a thousand years. This is the passage that divides many
Christians. Is this a literal thousand
year reign prior to the second coming? I
provide here a link to the IVP Commentary
on the passage. Setting aside that issue
for now, it is clear that there will be a period when satan is not allowed to
deceive. That does not mean that all
will believe but it should mean that disbelief is at least based on rejection
of truth not deception. In this time the
saints will reign on the earth. After this
period satan is unleashed and gathers his forces against the people of God but,
like at Sodom, fire falls down and destroys them prior to battle. We live in a cosmic battle between God and
satan, good and evil, and we need to be prepared spiritually for that encounter
and we always need to remember who the true enemy is. We spend too much time fighting the wrong
enemy, other people, and too little fighting the real enemy, satan.
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