Trophies

Trophies

12/8/14

We all know that when a formal competition ends the winners of the event usually receives some type of reward or trophy to commemorate the participant’s achievements.  Many of us limit this trophy presentation to the physical realm and some define this ceremony more specifically to the works that humans complete in the form of a lifetime achievement award.  Which ever way we deem the winning trophy to be, the trophy has a significant place on our mantelpiece.  But what if our enemy has the same goal in winning, what does he consider to be his trophies?  Have we ever stopped to consider how much our lives mean to God and to our enemy?  I can honestly tell you that only one of these two immortal enemies of each other cares anything about you, yet it is the other immortal being that we seek to please the majority of the time.

It has been stated in Genesis that God created the earth.  If a person chooses to believe this historical fact then they must concur that at some point in time something went wrong or happened to change this course of perfect creation.  Some large and permanent event must have taken place in order for the current problems within and on the earth to be occurring on a continual basis today.  We also see evidence that when Jesus was tempted by Satan that Satan made the claim that he would give Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world if He would just bow to him.  Yet Jesus did not argue this fact and it is well known that when Jesus was confronted with a non-truth He always set the record straight, but this time He said nothing which means that Satan was actually telling the truth.

I recently wrote an article entitled “Medals” and it was dealing with the fact that we are Jesus’ medals and how we are so precious to Him and His eternal goodness and being.  It has been said that children tend to turn out like their parents.  This is true because shared traits are common within humans and whether or not they intend to follow in the previous footsteps, some traits are well documented in the further generations of families.  So if Jesus did not argue that Satan had control of the world and its kingdoms wouldn’t that mean that we would have the worldly traits within us since we are born into this world?  I believe it would be the same as the physical traits when it comes to the spiritual matters as well, which would enhance the importance of choices in our lives, on every level.

For those who have listened to biblical scholars and ancient history historians, it is known that Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70AD.  The destruction of Jerusalem was very complete and bloody and it included the total annihilation of the Temple of Jerusalem.  It is difficult for us to really contemplate and to put into perspective exactly what the destruction of the Temple did and what this act symbolized to the Jewish people at that time.  This act still lingers in Jewish hearts today almost 2000 years later, with many still itching to reclaim the territory and to rebuild the Temple once again.

What many people may not know about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD was what occurred after the defeat of the city. After the dust had settled and the buildings stopped burning the Jewish people realized that everything that they had to represent their ways was about to be taken away from them for the parading around of their conquerors delight.  The Jews themselves were also going to be taken into captivity once again and be used to construct other buildings that would continually remind them of their defeat to a physically superior enemy.

Over 70,000 Jews were taken prisoner after the destruction of Jerusalem alone and almost 100,000 were taken into captivity during the entire first Jewish – Roman War.  After Jerusalem was destroyed the Jewish prisoners were walked back to Rome and then paraded in front of all the Roman citizens.  All of the possessions of the Jewish inhabitants were also taken into captivity and proudly displayed in front of the captive Jews and the Roman citizens as well.  This must have been a very humiliating experience for the Jewish people and you must know that the thoughts of “why?” were running through many of their minds at this time.  It is true, many of them probably had no real idea as to why God had allowed this event to take place, but some did know and understand why this occurred and yet they were taken into captivity as well.

Titus was a pompous and arrogant man and had an ego the size of the Roman Empire itself and he was proud of this fact about him so he decided to erect many works of architecture to ensure no one would ever forget his name.  One of the more prominent features that he built to himself was the Arch of Titus which still stands today.  It was built in dedication to his triumph over the Jews and the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.  The arch is a great monument but he takes things a step further with the artwork that lays engraved on top of the arch.  The artwork depicts the parade of newly taken Jewish slaves and all of the possessions that Rome gained with this overwhelming defeat of Jerusalem.  It is this arch that many of the enslaved Jews had to look at almost every day that they were alive in Rome which surely brought back terrible memories of that event along with the former life that they once enjoyed.

One of the consequences that the Jews had to endure was the next step in their slavery lives.  The majority of the Jews that were taken prisoner during the first Jewish – Roman War had a huge feat to accomplish.  The Roman Coliseum was not built yet and with the new influx of slaves it was seen fit to have them be the workers to be used for building this gigantic monument, and indeed it was through Jewish slave labor that built the exact complex that would later house Christians as they met their death during Roman sporting events.  The physical patterns from slavery to death took their natural course here even though the beliefs of the two nations differed their roots are the same and therefore makes perfect sense as to why this pattern transpired.

It is not hard to find such examples throughout human history as the one that I just described.  This pattern of behavior is well documented from each society known to humanity and will even include some of the modern regimes of today.  Parading captives and booty from conquered enemies is one of the “highlights” of a victory party and has become a national standard in some instances.  However, in many modern societies trophies such as these are placed upon other levels including rewards for doing a job well done.  Many of the international sporting events hand out trophies for the winning participant all of the close runners up with the most famous and the widest participated contest being the World Cup.

It is through these friendly competitions that display the better settings of such trophy presentations but even in some of these events not everything goes smoothly as wanted, thus intensifying the memories of such trophy ceremonies.  I wish I could say that after each Olympic event that the awards ceremony was not marred by either horrid memories or just plain stupid gestures by the winning participants.  I also wish that I could say that my country was not one of these issues, but to this I cannot say.  It is true that not many of these worldwide events come through unscathed or have certain controversies within them that mar the results of the overall competition, and it these inaccuracies that usually dominate the memories instead of the true nature to which the event was constructed to be.

How does this type of marring translate into our lives?  Many of us tend to forget that we have a spiritual and immortal enemy that likes to use us as trophies.  What is the one thing that we humans wish to hide the most?  It is our past that haunts us the most and the stupid choices that we made during this time period.  Most of us still carry the pain and the hurts within us no matter how hard we try and forget about that awful time in our lives.  Yet certain events, places or other people tend to remind us of those decisions and how that time plays a role in our life today.  I have been in many places in my life and have met thousands of people during my tenure here, but as of this moment in my life I have not met one person that has not regretted some certain thing, event or time in their lives.  It is human to err and it is human to suffer from these errors.

It is these events and times throughout our life that our enemy uses against us and it is through these events that our enemy uses as his trophies.  First of all I must remind the reader that our enemy does not care one iota about you or me, in any way.  Satan does not keep these trophies for himself but he sure does proudly display these trophies at opportune times in our life just to remind us of our past and the failures of those times.  Satan is famous for tormenting our lives with our past and the events that led us into placing those events into our past as the stonework for our hesitancy for our future. 

It is the job of our enemy to make sure that we do not live up to what God has planned for our lives.  We find ourselves in jeopardy of not accomplishing these divine when we allow our pasts to dictate our present and our futures.  Many of us do not realize that it our enemy who is placing his trophies on our mantelpiece as a reminder to ourselves of all the stupid things that we did in our past and how we could not be worthy of accomplishing anything for God currently or in the future.  As soon as he has convinced us not to do something, he quickly clears off the mantelpiece of most of the trophies but leaves one or two for a while just to keep us in our place.  Do you understand what this act really means to our lives?

This act of torture represents the perfect example of a life in slavery.  Just as the Jews were subjected to a new life of slavery in Rome, so are we to our enemy if we continue to allow our lives to be dictated by the ruler of this world.  This pattern follows the exact same physical one that we acquire if we do not recognize what exactly is at stake and the importance of our choices that we make concerning our lives.  If we stop and take a closer look at the 70 AD captivity, we will see that the current lives of the Jews at that moment was the trophy that the Romans used to humiliate them after the battle was completed. 

It is amazing to think about these people losing all of the memorabilia from their heritage that should have been their guide, to their enemy.  This means that they did not learn from their past and continued in their own wicked ways and when it came time to fight the real enemy, they did not have a chance.  This should tell us something about how the Jews understood and believed in God’s laws and it should scream out to us that we in this present day are sitting in the exact same position as the Jews were back in 70 AD.  Why is this?  It is because the Jews did not live according to their divine plans that God had for tem, which became liabilities to their lives and trophies to their enemy.  The same occurs in our spiritual lives as well and in this concept (truth) we totally ignore.

When our enemy is finished with us, he takes his proverbial arm and in one fluid motion wipes off each trophy onto the floor and then laughs at us after he is completed his slavery session.  The trophies are not destroyed but lying on the floor to our embarrassment, ready to be used against us again when the time comes.  We pick them up and we hold them close to our bodies and cry wanting to rid ourselves of them but continue to hand them right back to our enemy as he sticks his hand out for them. How can this not be a constant reminder of a slave and her / his societal living?

How many times have we allowed our enemy to hold our pasts against us?  It is easy for us to do and hard for us to let go of when the time comes.  While this is the hardest thing to accomplish in our lives and as long as this past of ours stays buried within us, we hope that it will stay there and not be heard from again.  I must inform everyone that this is not the case and at some point in our lives the divine potential that God has for our lives will come into play.  Our enemy knows this about us so he is not going to let go of the trophies he has in order for us to gain an advantage over him.  It is a tragedy that we fail to recognize our pasts as trophies for our spiritual enemy and count only the physical ones as potential surveyors.

The next logical question would be to ask oneself as to why our spiritual enemy would parade such a trophy?  There must be a reason as to why he would wish to do this especially when these displays are circumstantial in nature.  We cannot change our past nor can we change the results of those issues but we do have the opportunity to change our present and our futures and this is the exact reason why our enemy displays these trophies at his convenience.  And contrary to what he tells us, there is a true freedom from this slavery and one that can and gladly will take those past trophies away from his usage. 

All we have to do is to choose God as our eternal father and recognize Him as our Savior.  This gesture of faith and covenant shall turn our lives around and will begin to push back the darkness within our lives and in others as well.  It is for this reason that our enemy tries his best to wave his trophies in our faces.  No matter how much his kingdom tries to tell you differently, Satan does not care for you, all he wants is to lie to you enough and for long enough that he can rob you of what God has in store for your life.  There is hope, true hope in this situation.  God loves you very much and it His desire that you live in freedom and sees your potential for true life as a reward not as a slave.  If we allow God to work through our lives He will take those old trophies from our past and dispose of them into forgetfulness, never to be retrieved again.  This is our hope and the truth that God wishes for our lives.

DLB