The Man at the Fork in the Road
I mean, it does say simple. I thought it said slim. I need to take a drink. How are you today?
Beautiful day to be alive.
Thank you.
I just started melting when I heard Victory in Jesus. That song means so much, by her so many stories.
I started looking up the word victory. I’ll just read a couple scriptures, if that’s okay. It says here in 2nd Samuel, one of the first mentions of victory. In the Bible, there’s a guy named Shama.
Says the Philistines were gathered together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of lentils. That means just little beans. And the people fled from the Philistines, but He, Shama, stood in the midst of the ground and defended it and slew the Philistines and the Lord wrought a great victory.
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$...)
The Lord wrought a great victory.
Psalm 98 starts with O sing unto the Lord a new song for He hath done marvelous things, His right hand and His holding arm hath gotten Him the victory.
Isaiah 25 says He will swallow up death in victory. This is forecasting the coming of our beloved Messiah. Isaiah 25, 800 years before Christ arrived, He declares He will swallow up death in victory.
And The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth, for the Lord has spoken it.
Matthew 12, speaking of the delicate nature of God in the flesh, the Messiah, it says, A bruised reed shall He not break and a smoking flax shall He not quench till He send forth judgment unto victory.
He deals with us so delicately, significantly better than we deserve, and He says He will do so until He send forth judgment unto victory.
1 Corinthians 15, we’re familiar, says, So when this corruptible shall have put on in corruption and this mortal shall have put on in mortality, then she’ll be brought to pass that saying that is written, we just read it in Isaiah.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
Next verse, Oh, death. The word oh is an emotional container. Sometimes it’s a small bucket. Other times it’s as big as the ocean. Oh, death. Where is thy saying, staying, oh, grave, where is thy victory? But thanks beyond the God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$...)
1 John 5:4 says, for whatsoever is born of God, overcomeeth the world. And this is the victory that overcomeeth the world, even our faith. I feel like we should unpack that verse. It’s our faith in the right object, in the right person.
It’s the object of our faith, the anchor of our soul. It’s not the fact that we can say, I believe, because otherwise we start being prideful and saying, I have such confidence in my confidence.
Anyway, Revelation 15 says, And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name stand on the sea of class having the harps of god.
Ah, I can’t apologize for emotion. I think it’s appropriate.
So I got to tell a couple stories. My parents were youth pastors way back in the day. In Minnesota, they were college sweethearts and they were given a youth department as every maybe vibrant young college graduate couple is.
And what did they do? Well, they dressed up their two oldest sons in Reynolds rap, which is tinfoil. And they made us a helmet of tinfoil. And they made us a helmet of tinfoil, and they made us a breastplate of tinfoil, and then a sword of tinfoil, and little boots coverings of tinfoil.
And they had probably a three year old and a four year old. Get up there in the front of the youth group class, and we sang, Victory in Jesus, dressed up like little soldiers and my mom loved that picture.
This is back probably before they I mean people couldn’t hardly afford video cameras but that’s where we learned to sing it and we sang it with such vivacity and vibrance that we carried on that tradition for several years actually.
My brother my brother and I would get up there together and then when we had a third brother he would join and we would all get up as little kids and sing, usually with a stick. If we couldn’t get a sword, we’d go out after church knowing that our dad was going to call us up sometime during the song service and sing Victory in Jesus, so we’d go find us a stick outside the church and have it underneath our seat.
All right, boys, come on up, sing your song, and we’d reach underneath our seat and grab our stick. We’d go up there and we’d raise our stick up, victory in Jesus. Scream it, I mean, sin...