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My identity for this blog is James Klein, however that is not my real name. I am a Christian of 35+ years with sufficient life experience and Bible training to answer questions. I am not a pastor or church leader, but I regularly attend and participate in a church located somewhere in the United States of America. Details...

Friday, July 09, 2010

Conquer

During a worship service I attended last night they sang a song you may be familiar with. The words went like this:

Savior, You can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save. You are mighty to save. Forever the Author of salvation. You rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave…

As we were singing, my attention was drawn to the word “conquered”.

Conquer - To subdue: to reduce, by physical force till resistance is no longer made; to gain by force; to win; to take possession by violent means; to gain dominion or sovereignty over.

There is another song you may also be familiar with that goes like this:

The enemy has been defeated. Death couldn’t hold You down…

Even though these words are true they are somewhat misleading. Death didn’t have Jesus restrained until He eventually broke free from its grasp. Jesus didn’t just escape the grave, He CONQUERED it. Jesus didn’t just defeat the enemy, He CONQUERED them.

Sometimes innocent statements like this can have more effect than we realize. We need to be careful that we don’t limit how powerful God is by our words or actions. In 2Kings we see example of a time when Israel was being attacked by Aram…

2Kings 13:18-19 - Then he said, "Take the arrows," and the king took them. Elisha told him, "Strike the ground." He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times." (NIV)

How often do we accept sickness or hardships brought on by the devil because we only see Christ as escaping from hell instead of CONQUERING it?

The appostle Paul quoted Psalms 68:18 about this: “…When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train…” (Ephesians 4:8 NIV). Young’s Literal Translation says it this way: “…Thou hast taken captive captivity…” (Ephesians 4:8 YLT).

As I mentioned in my post “What’s So Great About Christmas Anyway?”, Jesus isn’t called the Captain of the Hosts for nothing. Jesus invaded the fortress of hell and He conquered it. That is to say that He subdued it; He reduced it by physical force until resistance was no longer made against Him; He took possession by violent means; He gained dominion and sovereignty over death, hell and the grave, FOR ALL OF ETERNITY.


James :)

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