I’VE READ THE LAST CHAPTER. GUESS WHAT? WE WIN!

“’Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

You ought to hear my melancholy friend, a guy who could definitely use a blast of high-octane laughing gas to lift his constantly sagging spirits.

Understand that my friend loves Jesus and believes the Bible. But every time he reads in the news that someone mocks Christianity, or takes a cheap shot at Jesus, or ridicules people of faith, or glamorizes an ungodly lifestyle, my friend is quick to respond, “What do you expect? We lose!”

I mean, look, I understand that there are people who hate God, and who consequently hate us. They will stop at nothing to discourage and defeat us. Sometimes they are successful. Who of us doesn’t know of someone who used to be a faithful follower of Jesus who, for whatever reason, has denied God’s truth and walked away from Jesus? Add to that the unsettling reality that we are fighting a relentless spiritual foe who is determined to defeat and devour us. Other than that, life down here is just peachy, thank you very much!

Nevertheless, spiritual battles and my friend’s sagging spirits notwithstanding, fact is, “We win!”

Don’t believe me? Not too sure? Do I sound too much like a pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by type of guy to you? Then don’t take my word for it. Take God’s word for it. This is what God prompted the Apostle Paul to write to a group of young-in-their-faith believers who were suffering a ton for their new-found faith. As you read it, you tell me if this sounds like a “We lose” scenario to you.

Dear brothers and sisters, we can’t help but thank God for you, because your faith is flourishing and your love for one another is growing. We proudly tell God’s other churches about your endurance and faithfulness in all the persecutions and hardships you are suffering. And God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. In his justice he will pay back those who persecute you.

Did you read that second to last sentence? God will actually use our trials and tribulations to show His justice to the world, and to make us worthy of His Kingdom. That surely doesn’t sound like “We lose” to me!

But wait! It gets even better.

And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. He will come with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power. When he comes on that day, he will receive glory from his holy people – praise from all who believe. And this includes you, for you believed what we told you about him.

When Jesus finally appears, these troubling times will be vanquished and the spiritual battles won, forever replaced by the eternal ecstasy of living with our Lord forever and ever. Does that sound like “We lose” to you?

Just ask Jude if we lose. What a compelling contrast he set up in his diminutive letter of only 25 verses. Sometimes less is indeed more. That is certainly true of Jude.

First comes the kind of stuff that sent my sullen friend sinking in his spirit.

I have to write insisting – begging! – that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish. What has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks (our Scriptures warned us this would happen), who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license—which means doing away with Jesus Christ.

But then comes the “We win!” kind of stuff that sends my spirit soaring.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

Just ask the Apostle John if we lose. Because of the unjust and undeserved suffering in his life, John could have easily and understandably allowed himself to be swallowed by hopeless despair. He could have encouraged himself to be eaten up inside by a rotting root of bitterness towards those who wrongly exiled him to a godforsaken island out in the middle of the Aegean Sea. He could easily have died a broken and angry old man, forced at ninety years of age to endure the torments of hard time enforced by the Roman lash.

Instead, John choose to look beyond his sufferings today and to embrace the certain hope of that day when he would see his beloved Jesus once again. And so as John finished writing the last verse of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, he did so by quoting Jesus’ spirit-lifting promise, “Surely I am coming quickly.”

To which John added his own hope-filled prayer, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

No doubt about it. John’s Scripture-concluding comments don’t sound like “We lose” to me. Not by a long shot. To my melancholy friend, and to you I say, “Read the last chapter. WE WIN!!!”