The Wasp in the Jam Jar

Ruby-tailed wasp, Chrysis species

Feeling a bit ashamed of myself,   Friday was the first day of the Brighton Convention.

Theme for the day?

"Let us not give up in doing what is fine" - Galatians 6:9.

And yet I gave up on the second day.  I did make it on Sunday.   It seems I can no longer manage 3 days at one go.  It is too painful.

The first speaker on Friday began with a very vivid image of the wasp in the jam jar.    The whole Convention is focused on helping us to stay strong and not give up as things get more and more difficult, as this present wicked system of things on the the earth comes to its end.

We live in these times described in the Book of Revelation:   "And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled  but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."- Revelation 12:7-9

Until this time, Satan moved freely between heaven and earth.  Look at the first chapters of Job, for example.  But when the moment described above came, he was expelled from heaven along with all the angels who had joined him in his rebellion and now he is confined to the earth.   He is very very angry.

"On this account be glad, you heavens and you who reside in them! Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing that he has a short period of time.” - Revelation 12:12

He knows he only has a short period of time left, and he wants to take as many of us off into destruction with him as he can.

So the image was of finding a wasp in your house, trapping him in a jam jar so you can release him outside.  The wasp in the jar is very angry.   Imagine we are all now inside the jar with that angry wasp.

So we need endurance.

"For you need endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the fulfillment of the promise. For yet “a very little while,” and “the one who is coming will arrive and will not delay.”  “But my righteous one will live by reason of faith,” and “if he shrinks back, I have no pleasure in him.”  Now we are not the sort who shrink back to destruction, but the sort who have faith for the preserving of our lives
." - Hebrews 10:36-39

A rescue is on the way. So close now - which will be the subject of the concluding talk on Sunday.

The wasp/jamjar is a good image, as Satan is going to be put outside for the Thousand years.  At the end of it he will be let loose, for a little while.

Revelation 20:3 says "and he hurled him (Satan) into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not mislead the nations anymore until the 1,000 years were ended. After this he must be released for a little while."

Why?  Why let him lose for a little while?  Why not destroy him then, after all the suffering he has caused?   My mum-in-law, a lifelong Baptist, asked me that soon after I began my study with the Jehovah's Witnesses, and to my amazement, I was able to answer her.

She later became a JW.

If anyone wants to know why, please ask the next JW to knock at your door. Or ask my blog. I will be delighted to pass on to you what has been taught to me.

I did the Butterfly memberships and associated paperwork on Saturday, washed the floors, and did some much needed dusting and polishing, and made us a salad tea and our sandwiches for Sunday, as we were both out.

And rested my aching limbs.