SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/22/2015
10:25 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Fourth Seal: Death
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
6:7-8
Message of the
verses: “7 When the Lamb broke the
fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come." 8
I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him.
Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and
with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
Let us begin with some of the things that I wrote on the
5th of May, 2005 when I also looked at these two verses. “This is the forth horse and rider that have
been identified and it seems interesting that the four living beings have been
the ones to tell these riders to come and to do what they are told to do upon
the earth.
“Death and Hades are spoken of in verse 8 and they are
two enemies of mankind and it is Jesus Christ who had come to conquer both of
these enemies, yet there are many who do not believe this and have rejected it
forever and the result of this will be when they die they will not be in the
presence of the Lord. Revelations 1:18
shows that Jesus Christ has the keys to both death and Hades: “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I
was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and
of Hades.” (Rev. 1:17b-18). In the last part of this book both will be
cast into hell. Rev. 20:14 “Then death and Hades were thrown into
the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”
“The last part of verse eight tells how death and Hades
will accomplish their task and that is by killing one-fourth of the population
upon the earth with the sword and with famine and pestilence and by the wild
beasts of the earth.”
As I mentioned it has been the four living beings who
have called the riders of the horses, and also the horses, and this is the
fourth living being that has done this.
However there are no more living beings to call out the orders so that
is the last we will see them do this.
Then next seal that is broken we will see the souls of those who had
died for the cause of Christ over the first part of the Tribulation Period.
Let us talk about the color of the horse as it is an
unusual color, and the word “ashen” is only used a few times in the New
Testament, in Rev. 8:7; 9:4 and also in Mark 6:39. John MacArthur writes that the Greek word for
this color is “Chloros,” and we get
the English word ashen, chlorine and also chlorophyll from this word. It is a sickly pale green color and it
depicts death.
What I am about to write comes from a while back, and it
comes from a former Pastor of mine and what he said helps to explain what the
numbers of those who die are according to the time when he said it. He use to hold up his hand and said that
there are now at this time five billion people in the world and suppose one
billion go in the Rapture of the Church, and then he would put one finger down,
and that leaves four billion people and on fourth of them die in this judgment
that we are looking at so that leaves three billion people and then in another
judgment we see that one third of the earth’s population dies, and this leaves
two billion people left. How they die is
a part of the ravages of war, but this is still a judgment from God. What about the wild beasts who kill some of
the population? John MacArthur has said
that the possibility of rats could be how this is done, for rats eat food
supplies and they also carry diseases that have killed millions of people in
the past. So we see in this judgment
that one fourth of the population of the world dies and mankind has the war
tools to accomplish this without the aid of God using some kind of supernatural
judgment, but He may do that too. As we
move along in our study of Revelation we will see the following verse: “Re 11:18 Re 11:18 "And the nations were enraged, and Your
wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward
Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name,
the small and the great, and
to destroy those who destroy the earth."”
John MacArthur finishes up his commentary on what we have
seen in these first four seal judgments with the following words: “The first four seals clearly describe awe-inspiring,
frightening judgments without parallel in human history. There is nothing that has happened since John
had this vision that could be the fulfillment of these judgments. These doomsday prophecies cannot be applied
to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (which was before John hand these
visions, since he wrote Revelation about AD 96) or any other event since that
one. Nothing this devastating has
happened, yet these first four seal judgments are just the beginning of the
horrific, worldwide woes that the sinful, rebellious world will
experience. Far worse is still to come
in the remainder of the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls. At that time the world of sinners will
realize that ‘it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God’
(Heb. 10:31). There will be no escape
for impenitent unbelievers from the terrors of the Tribulation, or from the
infinitely worse terrors of hell. In the
words of the writer of Hebrews, ‘How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?’
(Heb. 2:3).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Not just for
today, but is important for me to get the message of the Gospel out to those
whom the Lord brings into my path, and it is also important for me to tell
others what is going to happen in the future as seen in the book of Revelation.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and to trust and live in the love of Christ each day.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Leper” (Mark 1:40).
Today’s Bible
question: “Where did Lot live?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/22/2015 11:02 PM
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