CHECKMATE!

[6-minute read]

Chess is an adversarial game played between two opponents who are each serving a king on opposing sides. The goal of each player is to checkmate their opponent’s king by consistently making maneuvers to thwart or increase the difficulty of the opponent’s every move. Chess is not a friendly game that is interested in win-win outcomes because the sole winner will ultimately overthrow the king on the other side when it reaches a position where any move that it makes will lead to a total defeat.

This Easter, we are reminded that the run-up of events from Good Friday to Easter Sunday and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated the single-mindedness of Satan’s attempts to sabotage God at every turn of His divine plan. In the end, we see three eternal truths about God that are foundational to our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Truth 1: God’s Plan Cannot Be Stopped

Do you feel trapped, as though there is a counterforce that is bent on setting up barriers to sabotage your life, and charging at you with a barrage of doubts and insults to stop you from believing that your King has the power to save you? Similarly, when it looked like Jesus was playing right into the enemy’s hand, He was in fact meticulously tracing God’s blueprint and plans recorded by prophets long ago! So even when things may not be look ‘right’ in your life, stick to God’s Word and His plan just like Jesus did.

From a human perspective, governor Pontius Pilate had thought that things were looking so bleak for Jesus that without his official intervention, Jesus was doomed to fall into the hands of mob violence. But Jesus retorted, “You would have no power over Me if it were not given to you from above.” (John 19:10-11). In other words, Jesus was saying that it was neither human power nor plan that was competing with God’s plan because even wickedness, chaos, annoying and uncaring people show up in God’s scheme of things in our lives. This is because God always works through the realities of a broken world, and not through idealistic human thinking!

So when in doubt or discouraged, let’s remind ourselves that God’s ways and thinking are always superior to ours, no matter how things appear. (Isaiah 55:8-9). In addition, we are assured in Isaiah 14:27, “For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” The answer is this: no one can! Because we have a living God (not dead God) on our side, and the enemy cannot stop God from accomplishing His plans for us.

Indeed, it is because of what God accomplished through Jesus that we are able to tell people, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Crucified and left to languish, it looked as though God had forgotten His Son. But Christ is God’s begotten son; not a forgotten son and He was on a home run towards God’s plans for man’s eternal salvation.

Truth 2: God Always Wins

Have you ever got into an argument with God only to find yourself ending up on His side? How do you win an argument with One who knows the end from the beginning and who declared, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ (Isaiah 46:10).

Here’s a case in point: when the Roman soldiers proceeded to expedite the death of the three persons  who were crucified – including Jesus – because they did not want to have their bodies hanging on the cross on Sabbath the next day, Jesus died in that precise moment so that they did not have to break his legs, too. It was God who determined how and when Jesus would die, not man so as to fulfill God’s Word, “He protects all his bones; not one of them will be broken.” (Psalm 34:20 ).  

Later, when Jesus was laid in a tomb, the opening was secured with a large stone so no one could escape or enter. Surely, the enemy thought he had nailed a perfect plan to deliver Jesus a resolute checkmate. But it turned out that Jesus rose again and simply checked out! (Read John 20).

We often see on hindsight that God always fulfills His Word in our lives. Before His death, Jesus gave His disciples the benefit of knowing the realities that would unfold so they would be encouraged when they would see on hindsight the fulfillment of everything He said. “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:31-33).

We have an enemy whose fulltime job is to checkmate us. He will use setbacks and self-condemnation to wear you out and isolate you so you would quit on God – your King! “But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor 15: 57).

Because God always wins, you win.

Truth 3: God Has The Final Say

As believers, we need to learn to let God have the final say. Isaiah 43:10 recorded: “Before Me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after Me. I, I am the Lord, and beside Me there is no saviour.”

Jesus was the embodiment of the Word and promises of God; the Word who became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). His crucifixion and resurrection fulfilled the Word of God and proved that everything God said, He would make possible even when the probability was zero. Up to His final moments on the Cross, Jesus, “knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst”’ before issuing this parting word, “It is finished.” (John 19:28-30). When Jesus uttered those three words, it was not because He had reached the end of His rope.

Rather, the Greek Word for “It is finished” is Tetelestai which means it is done. What exactly was ‘done’? In business, Tetelestai describes a debt that is fully paid in the same way that Christ paid for our debt of sin on the Cross. In the court of law, Tetelestai refers to a sentence that is fully served in the same way that Jesus took all our sins and its power and nailed them with Him on the Cross. In military jargon, Tetelestai is a declaration of victory when a battle is fully won in the same way that Jesus triumphed over the finality of death through His resurrection!

The enemy wants to make you feel trapped, forgotten and cornered with the word ‘Checkmate’ in front of you! But remember this, you have a King whose plan for your life cannot be stopped. He always wins. And He always has the final say!

This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 8 April 2023.