Antonyms

As every person on this earth should know, an antonym is a word that means the exact opposite of another; the dictionary definition of the word antonym is: "A word opposite in meaning to another".So you could say that fat is the antonym of thin, tall is the antonym of small and so on and so on.

What I want to do differently, is to take a look at antonyms in the spiritual sense...let's take a look at John 16:20-22. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh away from you."

One of the spiritual antonyms I was talking about is right here.Jesus is leaving and He is telling his disciples that it will be hard on Earth without Him, they will have sorrows and they will weep and wish that the Lord was back with them...this is something that we see not only in the days of the apostles, we can also see this is our days.

How many times have we heard messages that these are the end times and the Lord will soon come? It wasn't just the Apostles that were waiting for the Lord's return; Christians all through the centuries have been waiting for Him, just as we are.

The good thing is that He will be coming back! Instead of waiting for our Lord's return, we will be with Him and it is going to be the greatest thing that had ever happened to us...as you see, something close to an antonym will take place.

I now that an antonym is strictly about words, but I think that we can apply the idea of antonyms to the situation that I gave the reader above. The period of intense waiting will be over, the exact opposite will take place, instead of waiting for Him, we will be with Him, and my, oh my, is it going to be great!!!

That is not the only Bible verse that talks about it though, let's take a look at Romans 8:18, 22, 23 "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us...for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and not only they but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

As we can see in these Bible verses, it is not only us that is waiting for the return of our Savior, creation itself is also waiting for the return of Christ...all that you have to do to see the effects of sin upon the wonderful world that the Lord has given us, is to take a look out the window, or turn on your TV, it then becomes very clear that it is not only mankind that is being affected by the ravages of sin, the earth is as well, if you remember, the earth was cursed, but again we have an antonym.

In Revelation we read: "and I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and these was no more sea."

Like I said, again the opposite will happen: the earth that we see now will be remade into one that is no longer groaning under that pain of sin, it will no longer be cursed, and the children of God will live in the New Jerusalem that will be on that new earth...the opposite will be in place, earth will be blessed and so will the ones that had chosen Christ as their personal Savior, the waiting will be over and we will finally be with the One that saved us.