Victory: The Final Whistle (Romans 13:11-14)

Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on December 02, 2007
Presented to Swift Current Corps on August 16, 2009
Presented to Corps 614 Regent Park on February 07, 2016
By Captain Michael Ramsay

Last weekend something happened…something exciting happened… Blue Bombers fans you may wish to cover your ears…the Riders won the Grey Cup. This was exciting. I know some of you probably didn’t get to see the whole game because you were in church like us or doing other things but on the way home in the car, when I turned on the radio, the Blue Bombers were up 3 to nothing. When they made it seven to nothing, I felt quite alone as the 5 and 6 year-old in my backseat erupted into a chorus of “Go Winnipeg Go!” I had faith, though - though it was mixed with a little doubt – I had faith that the victory we’ve been waiting for here for 18 years was finally coming through and –as we all know now my faith, my hope was not in vain. The cup returned.

I don’t know if you remember but in the last couple of minutes of the football game, right after that interception near the end, you could see the anticipation as the cameramen zoomed in on the players’ faces. They knew the game had been won already but it wasn’t over yet. The game had been won. They wanted to celebrate but it wasn’t over yet. The game had been won already and it took everything for the coach to keep the players on the sideline and staff off the field because the game wasn’t over yet. They knew that it had been won but the game wasn’t over yet. The anticipation was written on the Riders’ faces as they knew that the game had been won but it wasn’t over yet….

This is exactly the situation that our text is talking about today. I’ll read part of it for you again:

Ro 13:11-12 "And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here...."

It says that the night is nearly over! In verse 11 it says that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed! Now the Apostle Paul, in his numerous letters, uses the word ‘salvation’ in a number of ways. One way he uses the word is to refer to how we can be saved from the normal course of events in our lives (cf. Philippians 1:19).

Indeed we ourselves can be saved from daily events such as happened to me a few weeks ago when we were driving back from Winnipeg, we were pulled over; the officer however decided not to issue us a ticket: we were saved that expense. The other day Susan was going to walk back from dropping off our car to have winter tires put on. An employee at the store, however, offered her a ride; she was saved the walk. This is a common way that we are saved everyday and this is one way that Paul does indeed use the word ‘salvation’ but this daily salvation is not exactly what Paul is talking about here.

Paul speaks at times also, in other places in his letters - such as in 2 Corinthians 6:2 – about the ‘day of salvation’ and that ‘day of salvation’ is already here. It is not still to come; it has arrived but in verse 11 of our text today it says that our salvation is still to come: it says that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed so how can that be?

How can our salvation be both now and still to come? How can it be both near and here already. This is an important concept to understand (theologians refer to this concept as a ‘prolepsis’) because our Salvation, as it is, has indeed already been achieved. It was achieved when Jesus died and then won the victory through rising from the dead. Paul himself acknowledges this in other places in the scriptures: 2 Corinthians 6:2, 1 Corinthians 15:2, Ephesians 2:8 and the Apostle Peter talks about just this sort of thing in 1 Peter 1. So then Christ has already won the victory but the final reward of Salvation is yet to come. The Game is won but the final whistle has not been sounded yet and the great cup is still be presented.

It is very much like our roughriders game. When the player went down on one knee to run out the clock at the end there was no way that they could be defeated. The Rider nation, as it were, the Roughrider fans were already victors with the team, just like we are already victors with Christ.

When Christ died on the cross and then rose from the grave, Death was dealt its deathblow, so to speak: Christ intercepted the pass and ran for the final touchdown to put the game out of reach. There is no way now that sin and death can ever come back and win the game but the thing is that that final whistle hasn’t gone yet[1] and this is exactly what Paul is speaking about in our text here today.

In this passage in Romans, Paul is speaking about salvation as if it were that final whistle. Sure the Riders had won the game with 20 seconds left to go but they did not get to hold the Grey Cup until after the final whistle had sounded.

The analogy Paul uses to make this point is quite neat – and for those here who aren’t Riders’ fans or aren’t football fans, I imagine a new analogy is a bit of a welcome relief right now. Paul refers to our salvation as the daytime that is almost here. This is exciting actually because, just as with the game that is out of reach, there is nothing that we can do to stop the daytime from coming, there is no such thing as a night that never ends; for that to happen the earth must stop spinning and then we would have a lot more problems than just a lack of light. Day hasn’t arrived yet but there is nothing we can do to stop it from coming.

That being said, Paul has some words for us. He says that we should wake up (verse 11)! We don’t want to miss it. Wouldn’t you hate to be a Riders fan who, after 18 years in waiting, slept through the awarding of the cup. It wouldn’t change the outcome of the game but it would sure affect you. Paul says wake up, you don’t want to miss the finish. You don’t want to miss the dawn but he says even more than that.

He says that since the darkness is fading (verse 12), we should no longer live like we are in the darkness. It is like ‘regime change’ such as we’ve heard so much in the news the last couple of years and there is a good example of this from historical England actually.

There was a time in England’s history when she had neither a King nor a Queen. Parliament had won the war against the monarchy and that is arguably the darkest period in all of English history. The rules of their society changed so drastically: it became so repressive without the king to look out for the interests of the common people that they eventually begged the son of the king to come back to rule over them again – but, even then, it takes a while and people have to be convinced to act the way the new regime wants. Just ask the Americans how well their governments in Iraq and Afghanistan are going…it may be a new day there but many people are still not choosing to living under their authority.

It is the same in our world of the text today. When Christ died there came about a regime change – the King is back. The Son of the King has come and he is indeed coming back and as this is the case, it is time to stop acting as if he is not.

Daytime is arriving so we should stop doing all of those things that people like to do in the night. Some of these things that we should stop are listed in our text today: it says in verse 13 that we should not engage in sexual immorality and debauchery; we should not engage in dissention and jealousy. Doing so, acting on our own selfish desires, would be like swearing allegiance to the darkness, to the old regime, the defeated regime; it would be like paddling out to join the Titanic as it’s going down or buying shares in Eaton’s as it goes ‘belly up.’ It would not be prudent. It would not be smart.

This is important. You see when we focus on ourselves rather than God and others (see verses 8-10; Matt 7:12, 22:40), we are serving the defeated regime and don’t be mistaken, even though it is defeated, it is still fighting and even though darkness has lost, people are still dying.

This is very much like the battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. I don’t know how much you know about that battle or that war but it is very significant. You see the War of 1812 began when England was busy trying to contain Napoleon as he was bringing war to every corner of the planet he could reach. England was very busy trying to stop him so the Americans thought this would be a good time to conquer Canada so like they did many times before, they invaded – only it didn’t go so well. They lost. We were saved. They failed to conquer Canada and they were forced to send their agents overseas to sue for peace.

While on December 24, Christmas Eve, 1815, the war ended; but there was no long distance telephone, e-mail, or other way to tell the troops in the field this quickly in those days and so on January 8th a terrible thing happened. General Pakenham took the initiative on his own and invaded New Orleans. The enemy had already been defeated, the war had already been won but there were over 1700 casualties that day. The war had already been won but many people still perished in the battle that followed.

This is what it is like for us today. Even though the victory has been won already, people are perishing everyday. If we follow our own selfish desires, even though the war has been won…not everyone has been delivered from the darkness. There are still people perishing everyday.

How many of us, like General Pakenham’s troops are perishing when they don’t have to. How many of us are acting on our own instead of submitting to God? How many in this world – how many of us, our friends, or our family, still give in to drunkenness or debauchery and sexual sin? When we do so we are serving the darkness, the old regime, the defeated regime.

How many of us still give into quarrelling and jealousy? They are the same as the former sins, you know. And so when we do, we are serving the darkness, the old regime, the defeated regime. If you break one aspect of the law you transgress the whole thing (Gal 3). In the eyes of the Lord sin is sin and the consequence of sin is the same as it was for those poor people who marched to their graves in New Orleans even though the victory has been one. The wages of sin are death (Ro 6:23).

So why would we commit sexual sin or quarrel with each other? Why when we know that that is submitting to the old regime, the defeated government? Why? Why are we content to live in the darkness?

Why not rather strap on the armour of light like it says in verse 12. Actually this is neat too. Did you know that the word translated as ‘armour’ here (and in Ephesians 6 too) –‘hopla’ - is probably better translated ‘weapons.’[2] This designates much more than just defending oneself with amour. This refers to going out and seizing the foe. We should not just hide from the darkness we must wage war against it.

It says in verse 14 that we must put on Jesus Christ himself and make no provisions for our own selfish desires and really that is what the answer to everything is isn’t it? As we put on Christ, we can engage the world and not succumb to it. When we have Him as our armour nothing can slay us – He has no Achilles heel.

So it is to this end that I exhort us today. The game has been won, the foe has been defeated; therefore for us to be engaged in selfishness now would be like if in the last minute of play one of the roughriders switched to join the Blue Bombers, why when the victory is already won would anyone want to forfeit their prize before it is awarded? Why would we want to reject our salvation now that the daylight is coming?

So today, I leave us with this encouragement. Sin is already defeated. Death is dead and the darkness is fading so let us, like Jesus said to the lady accused of adultery (John 8:10), let us go and sin no more so that we may be there to hoist that great cup high with Christ who has already won us the victory.

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To view the 2016 Toronto version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2016/02/romans-1311-14-really-super-bowl.html 

[1] - just like with injury time in soccer, only the ref knows when it will but nonetheless the game is out of reach.

[2] NT Write, Romans NIB: 728; the word is ‘hopla’