SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/6/2015
8:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Jesus Gives His Command to Thyatira
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Revelation2:24-25
Message of the
verses: “24 ’But I say to you, the rest who are in
Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of
Satan, as they call them-I place no other burden on you. 25 ’Nevertheless what
you have, hold fast until I come.”
In our last SD we saw what the Glorified Christ who knows
all things and sees all things said He would do to those who were following the
sins of Jezebel that they would be judged for their sin, but now we see the
Lord addressing those who have not followed this false teaching and He gives
comfort to them. John MacArthur points
out a passage in the book of Malachi in which God also gave comfort to those he
was ministering to. Malachi is the last
book in the Old Testament and he ministers to those who had returned from the
captivity in Babylon. He writes “16 Then
those who feared the LORD
spoke to one another, and
the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was
written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. 17 “They
will be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "on the day that I prepare My
own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves
him."”
Next we see that Christ defines the believers as those “who
have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them.” Those who were following Jezebel believed
that they could plunge into the deep things of Satan, things like false
theology, impurity, licentious, and then come and worship the Lord as if
nothing was wrong with that. This was
similar to the Jews during the last days of their kingdom as described in the
OT prophets of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The
Jews had idols that they worshiped on the “high places” and then they would
come down to the temple and worship the Lord as if nothing was wrong with
that. As I studied the attributes of God
one of them is that God is a Jealous God, and I have mentioned that the kind of
Jealousy that God has is not selfish like the kind we humans have. God deserves to receive all worship and when
that does not happen those who are worshiping false gods, it is sin for God
will not share His glory with anyone, which is what those in this church were
doing, they were sharing God’s glory with the deep things of Satan and it is no
wonder that Jesus Christ comes down on them for that. This kind of thing reminds me of what Paul
wrote to the Romans in a number of chapters you will find Paul asking a rhetorical
question and then give the answer in the strongest no found in the Greek
language. You can look at the third
chapter of Romans for examples of this.
Here are two examples of what I am talking about: “Ro 6:15
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?
May it never be! Ro 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May
it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through
the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said,
"YOU SHALL NOT COVET."”
Christ tells those who have not followed those deeper
things of Satan, following the practice of Jezebel, that He will place no other
burden on them. He also tells them to
hold fast to what you have until I come.
John MacArthur writes “The use of the strong word krateo (hold fast) indicates that it would not be easy. The coming of Christ as it related to the
Thyatira church was His coming to them in judgment. But in a wider sense, all believers are to ‘cling
to what is good’ (Rom. 1:29) until Christ’s return.”
We have one shorter lesson from this church of Thyatira
and then we will have completed the first two chapters of the book of
Revelation. Chapter three has three more
churches to look at and two of these last three churches sink down deeper into
sin and doing wrong and one is one of the best churches we will study.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: When I put on the
spiritual armor each morning I read a number of times from the 6th
chapter of Ephesians “Stand Firm,” and this is what the Lord is saying to those
believers in the church at Thyatira and this is what I want to do too. I am not saying that I do not want to grow
more in the Lord, but I am saying that I do not want to go backwards, I want to
hold on to what I have.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
To love the Lord with all of my heart,
soul, mind, and strength, and to better understand and apply the love that the
Lord has for me in my everyday life.
Memory verses for the
week: 2 Peter 1:9-10.
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 your calling and choosing you; for
as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Abraham.”
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘let her gleam even
among the sheaves, and reproach her not’?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/6/2015 9:14 AM
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