Victim or Victor?

            After the death of Alexander the Great, his massive empire fell into chaos.  When the dust had settled, there were four primary power blocks.  One of the powerful segments was the Seleucid Empire.  This empire controlled the Middle Eastern area in which the Israelites resided.  Around the year 150 BC, a powerful story is recounted in the book of 2 Maccabees.  While this book is not in the Old Testament canon, it does give relevant information about the days before Jesus. At this time, the Israelites were oppressed by a vile and wicked king named Antiochus Epiphanes.  This king took particular delight in forcing the Israelite people to do things that were forbidden by the Scriptures.  A widow and her seven sons were brought before Antiochus and told to eat pork (something forbidden in the Jewish dietary regulations).  When this courageous family refused, the king threatened torture and death.  This courageous mother and her seven sons refused to submit to the evil king’s threats, so the king began killing each son, starting with the oldest.  With the hideous torture and death of each son, the Jewish widow exhorted her sons to remain faithful unto death.  The mother reminded each son that God is faithful.  She defied the king and told each son that the eternal promises of God make mortal threats meaningless.  Such courage and fortitude are rare in today’s world. If you want to read the whole story, do an internet search relating to 2 Maccabees 7.

            This week’s article asks the question:  Are you a victim or a victor? It is concerning to see the world around us degenerate into a culture of victims.  While I do not wish to minimize the problems that we face in a world that seems to embrace lawlessness and selfishness, the question I ponder is: how should we face this world?  How would we react if we faced the same dilemma that the Jewish widow faced under Antiochus Epiphanes?  What would it take before we abandoned or forfeited our sacred beliefs and convictions?  Jesus was quite clear in warning us that as we live life, Satan is active in this world.  In a world that increasingly calls good values bad and attempts to define deviant as normal, how are we to react?  We must avoid thinking of ourselves as victims; we are called to be conquerors.  As “Victors in Christ,” we understand that this world is not our home.  We must live with the conviction that death in this temporary world is graduation to our eternal life.  Sacrifice today brings blessings in eternity.

It is distressing to see Christians live whipped and defeated lives.  As God’s servants, we must remember that God has defeated Satan.  There is coming a day when all wrongdoing will face judgment, and evil will be righted.  With this in mind, the follower of Jesus has a great mission.  The early Church understood their mandate.  The early Christians were described as those people who “turn the world upside-down.”  If we dare to trust God and live as victors (rather than victims), we can take an upside-down world and turn it right-side up.  Keep looking up.