Reflections on Revelation #225

Day 225

“If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.” Revelation.13:10. (NASB)

Firstly, we should note that a ‘saint’ according to the biblical definition is anyone who is a faithful follower of Jesus, not someone who has been ‘canonised’ by an apostate organization. If you are a believer and follower of Jesus, you are one of the saints. Notice e.g., how Paul starts most of his letters in 1 Corinthians 1:2. According to today’s verse a characteristic of the saints is patient endurance. Followers of God are persistent in well-doing. They are faithful in trial. They are not content to live on the surface, they go deep into God’s Word, willing to follow wherever the Word leads. 
In 1938 the King of Saudi Arabia authorized a team of Americans to search for water in the desert bordering the Persian Gulf. He was thinking of places where he could refresh his warrior’s horse and camels.

But the team, from Standard Oil of California, had something else in mind. Oil had been discovered in other countries in the region, and the engineers thought they would find more in Saudi Arabia. Over several years, they drilled more than half a dozen holes without result. They could easily have given up in frustration. Instead, they decided to see if going deeper than normal might make a difference. So, they set up their equipment again at well number 7 and dug deeper than they had ever dug before. They burrowed all the way to a depth of over 1500m and finally hit the first sign of what would turn out to be the largest supply of crude oil in the world. A willingness to go a little deeper was all that stood between failure and unimaginable success.

The King was unimpressed and did nothing for 1 year not knowing that this discovery would change everything for his Kingdom. Up until this time, the primary source of income in the Saudi kingdom came from servicing pilgrims in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. But even the first shipment of oil produced wealth beyond all expectations. This isolated country with no other exportable product now became a major factor in global politics. The Saudi royal family became major players on the world scene. Their wealth became a crucial factor in Middle East politics and bargaining over global energy supplies. All because a handful of American engineers were not willing to be content with a surface approach to their task. 

With the Bible, we can be like a child on the seashore and splash around on its edges or we can be like deep sea divers who plummet the depth of His word.

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