Indeed, as the apostle Paul said in Romans 5, "Death reigned from Adam to Moses, and in his power those who did not sin as Adam did", "one reigned because of death" , "Sin reigns and kills people"... Sometimes we are too naive, thinking that with our efforts, as long as we have strong perseverance and determination to never give up, we can completely defeat sin. However, anyone who has had a real battle with "sin" knows that man cannot overcome his sinful nature by himself. In the face of the impending counterattack of the evil forces, the Elf King chose to escape and block the entire country from all connections with the outside world. The Elven King was wise, but that wise could not save his kingdom, not even himself.
The Elven King's choice seemed correct. However, he forgot one fact. In this world we live in, in addition to the power of sin, there is another power that is far greater than all power, and that is the God of Self-existence, All-Knowing and Almighty that we believe in. When the elf king ordered the gates to be blocked, we seemed to see the figure of the 10 spies of the Israelites, who also forgot that God was among us.
However, choosing to believe in God seems difficult. Because we have failed time and time again, the pain of the past has deeply stimulated our nerves, leaving us without the courage to face the bigger waves to come again. We wish we had more victories so that we could be inspired and have the courage to face reality. In reality, however, we face challenges that are far beyond our ability time and time again, and rarely experience victory in life. Even with some victories in our lives, we often lose our armor and lose our armor when faced with the sin in our hearts, because it seems that we are really "sold to sin" and we repeatedly find ourselves "incapable of doing good." ".
However, for Christians, no matter what we have been through and how many failures we have experienced, we still believe that God is always in control. God reigns not only in our lives, but also in the lives of others; not only in heaven, but also on earth, and absolutely in hell; not only in our outer lives, but also in Our inner world rules. Therefore, no matter what happens in this world, no matter what invincible difficulties we experience, no matter how great pressure we face, we still have the confidence and courage to face the future. We don't necessarily believe that God will help us solve our problems, but we believe that God is with us in all situations and loves us deeply. We have an advantage over Joshua and Caleb because we know clearly that this unchanging love of God has been shown to us fully and clearly through the death of his only begotten Son on the cross. manifested.
The elven prince and the elven woman warrior bravely went to fight against evil, and we do not know what power they relied on. Maybe Tolkien (author of the Lord of the Rings series) wanted to express that Christians rely on Jesus Christ to challenge sin, or maybe he was just describing the world's courage to fight sin because of the ordinary grace of God. For Christians, the reason why we cannot stand firm against the constant counterattack of sin is not because we have the ability to overcome sin, but because we have Jesus Christ in our hearts, and Jesus Christ said that He has overcome the world (John 16:33). And when Martin Luther talked about this, he actually made such a cry: "One Christian is bigger than the whole world!" The
Elf Prince is a major attraction of this movie, because in the "Lord of the Rings" series, The elf prince has an extremely eye-catching performance. That handsome face, that fit body, that dashing movement, that sharp eyes, that strong self-confidence... I don't know how many fans have captured the "heart". And the elf female warriors also have the same wonderful performance. The two are both superior and inferior, and they are also comrades in the trenches. Likewise, Christians are not alone in their struggle against sin. We need to be vigilant at all times of the "Elijah complex", not to fall into self-mourning, self-pity, self-pride, and self-righteousness like he once fell into "I am the only one left".
God has raised up many disciples in this world. In the process of walking the "Road to Heaven", we should not only think that we are alone, but should constantly seek out the brothers and sisters who are chosen by God and live by our side, and have a good relationship with them. They fellowship, accompany, know and support each other, fight against sin together, and enjoy the rich and rich grace bestowed by God together.
(To be continued...)
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