Bible Devotion- 4/5/2021

It was June 18, 1815, the Battle of Waterloo. The French under the command of Napoleon were fighting the Allies (British, Dutch, and Germans) under the command of Wellington. The people of England depended on a system of semaphore signals to find out how the battle was going. One of these signal stations was on the tower of Winchester Cathedral.
 
Late in the day it flashed the signal: "W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N- - -D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D- -." Just at that moment one of those sudden English fog clouds made it impossible to read the message. The news of defeat quickly spread throughout the city. The whole countryside was sad and gloomy when they heard the news that their country had lost the war.
 
Suddenly the fog lifted, and the remainder of the message could be read. The message had three words, not two. The complete message was: "W-E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N-----D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D-----N-A-P-O-L-E-O-N!" It took only a few minutes for the good news to spread. Sorrow was turned into joy, defeat was turned into victory!
 
So it was when Jesus was laid in the tomb on Wednesday Evening. The message was He was dead. Those that followed Jesus were so discouraged. It seemed that everything they had believed had been dashed against the cross. But on the morning of the third day, we got a new message. The discouragement and defeat of His followers was turned into joy and triumph. He had risen from the dead!
 
Romans 1:3-4  Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
 
The word “declared” carries the basic idea of marking off boundaries. From that term comes our English horizon, which refers to the demarcation line between the earth and the sky. In an infinitely greater way, the divine sonship of Jesus Christ was marked off with absolute clarity in His incarnation. Easter, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead, declares that Jesus is the divine Son of God. The resurrection only confirms who He is.
 
The resurrection also confirms that what He did on the cross had been accepted by the Father. He was raised as a testimony that the work of salvation was complete. When Jesus died on the cross He was dying as a sacrifice for our sins. The resurrection confirmed that His sacrifice had been accepted by the Father. Therefore, we can sing:
 
Tis done, tis done,
The great transaction tis done.
 
Dear Brother or sister walk today in the assurance that what was accomplished at the cross was the finished work of God.  Nothing more needs to be done but for the repentant sinner to believe in that finished work.  We don’t work FOR victory, we work FROM victory!
 
Bro. Jeff