As a boy, I liked to read stories. I had a habit of reading the last pages first to see what happened to the villain. I wanted to make sure that he got it in the neck. Then I would start at the beginning and, although my hero was often up to his ears in trouble and sometimes it looked as though he wouldn’t last through the next page, I would say under my breath, “Cheer up! Everything’s all right. I’ve known the end from the beginning.” And no matter how the villain swaggered, and although it looked sometimes as though he had it made, I’d say, “If only you knew what I know! Your goose is cooked from the start!”
I have a Bible that tells me where we came from and where we’re going. If I open it at some places, it looks as though the devil were sure to win.
Truth forever on the scaffold;
Wrong forever on the throne.
“The Present Crisis,” James Russell Lowell
But let them boast and blow and let all his henchmen strut. I’ve read the last pages of my Bible and he is not the picture. He is gone and a lot of other things are gone. Thank God for the “no mores” of Revelation! – no more death, no more sorrow, crying, pain, or night! “…the former things are passed away” (21:4)! The devil is in the pit and the Lamb is on the throne. Everybody is where he ought to be. Hallelujah!