SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/1/2015
10:18 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Christ Command to Pergamum
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
2:16
Message of the
verse: “16 ’Therefore repent; or
else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the
sword of My mouth.”
When a believer
sins he is sinning against the Lord and there is only one thing to do and that
is to sallow your pride and repent.
Believers must remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is all knowing and
sees everything that is going on in His church.
John MacArthur writes “Repent is from metanoeo, a word used in Scripture to describe a change of mind
that results in a change of behavior.
While tolerance is lauded in our modern culture, tolerating heretical
teaching or sinful behavior in the church is not a virtue but a sin. So serious a matter is it that, should they
fail to repent of failure to discipline, Christ warns them “I am coming to you quickly,
and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth (cf. Num. 22:23.” “23 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD
standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, the donkey turned off
from the way and went into the field; but Balaam struck the donkey to turn her
back into the way.” The donkey that
Balaam was riding has something in it that I want in me and that is total
obedience to the Lord. God was the One
who caused the donkey to speak to Balaam, and she was the one who saw the Angel
of the Lord with the sword and so she did what any good donkey would have done
and that was stop. Animals and other
things like seas have no problem obeying the Lord, but people do. Jesus spoke to the sea and it stopped the
storm on it right away, no questions asked, but we as humans have a great deal
of trouble in obeying the Lord.
MacArthur goes on with this important fact: “The entire church faced the battle sword of
Christ’s judgment, the heretics for practicing their heresy and iniquity, and
the rest of the church for tolerating it.
The change in pronouns from “you” to “them” reflects and underlying
Hebrew idiom commonly found in the Septuagint; both pronouns refer to the
entire church.”
In the early stages of the church we see that in the
fifth chapter of the book of Acts that there was immediate judgment on a
married couple named Ananias and Sapphira who made up a story together about
saying that after selling a piece of property that they would hold some of the
money back and tell the apostles that they gave them the entire amount. Peter confronted them and they would not
repent and so they died for lying and not realizing that they were actually
lying and tempting the Holy Spirit. A
little later on in church history we read in 1 Cor. 11 that people were dying
because they were not celebrating the Lord’s Supper properly, as they were
actually getting drunk. One of the purposes
of the Lord’s Table is to search your heart to see if there is any sin in it
and if there is to care for it before you partake of the bread and juice. Of course we are to also remember what the
Lord Jesus did for us on the cross also.
We see that one of the problems in the Pergamum church
was they were tolerating the sins of Balaam and also the sins of the
Nicolaitans and we discussed what these were already. It was wrong for the church to tolerate
people doing this and it was a problem for the rest of the church not to have
them disciplined and eventually taken out of the church and turned over to
Satan as Paul speaks of in his first letter to the Corinthians.
Christ’s Counsel to the Pergamum Church (Revelation
2:17): “17 ’He who has an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will
give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new
name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’”
Christ advice to this church is the same as to the other
churches and that is to listen to what the Holy Spirit has to say to the
churches. This truly was a bigger
problem in some of the churches like Ephesus who did not listen to the commands
that Christ gave to them and not there is no church there or any town there.
Let’s talk about the hidden manna first and then about
the white stone. The Hebrew word for
manna may seem a bit strange as it means “what is it.” Manna was given to the children of Israel
when they were wondering around in the desert for forty years. I suppose that when the children of Israel
first saw it that asked what is it and that may be how it got its name. When the Ark of the Covenant was made some
manna in a jar was put into it. Jesus
was asked about God giving manna to the children of Israel after he had feed
the five thousand as the Pharisees told Him that Moses gave them bread from
heaven to which Jesus told them “I am the bread that comes from heaven. Whatever was in the manna must have been very
good for the children of Israel to eat as they lived on it while wondering in
the wilderness and the only other thing that we see them eat were some quails,
but that is another story.
Next we look at the white stone and there are different
opinions about what the Lord is talking about.
I am going to go with the one that makes the most sense to me and that
is that during these days when this was written there were many Olympic type
games going on and in some of them the winner of the games would receive a
white stone and on this stone was their name and the purpose of this stone was
to get them into the celebration dinner after the games were over. I believe that Jesus is telling this church
that if they will obey His commands that they too will receive a white stone
that only God knows the name on it and then they will be able to go into heaven
and participate in the supper of the Lamb which is spoken about in a later
chapter in Revelation.
John MacArthur finishes his commentary on this church
with these words: “The Pergamum church
faced the same choice that every similar church faces. It could repent and receive all the
blessedness of eternal life in the glory of heaven. Or it could refuse to repent an face the
terrible reality of having the Lord Jesus Christ declare war on it. Maintaining the path of compromise ultimately
leads to judgment.”
We look next at Thyatira:
The church that tolerated sin as things grow worse as we continue
looking at these seven churches.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: We live in a
compromising age and many churches also compromise, but I do not want to compromise
my what I know to be true and will need the help of the Lord to live an
uncompromising life and be true to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and to better understand the love that the Lord has for me.
Memory verses for the
week: 2 Peter 1:-10.
5 Now for this very reason
also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in
your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in
your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in
your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 For
if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither
useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he
who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his
purification from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be all the more
diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you
practice these things, you will never stumble;
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Sodom” (Genesis 13:12).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who were the tentmakers who
assisted Paul at Corinth?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/1/2015 11:10 PM
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