SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/25/2015
10:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Persons PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
6:9
Message of the
verses: “9 When the Lamb broke the
fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain
because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had
maintained;”
Let’s begin with a quote from John MacArthur which if
from the end of his introductory comments on this fifth seal: “The fifth seal marks the midpoint of the
Tribulation period in bridging the gap between the beginning of God’s wrath in
the first half of the Tribulation and its full fury revealed in the second
half. Like the horsemen of the first
four seals, it also portrays a force.
That force is the prayers of God’s saints for Him to extract vengeance
on rebellious mankind. Three features
become evident as the fifth seal is unveiled:
the persons involved, the petition they have, and the promise they
receive.” In today’s SD we will look at
the persons who are involved as seen in verse nine.
Just a little review and that is that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the One who is breaking the seals, and the scroll is the title deed
to the universe, and the reason that He is breaking the seals is to take back
the universe. The fifth seal is that
underneath the altar are souls of those who had been slain for the cause of
Christ. These are the martyrs who had
been killed because of their testimony for the Lord. These are people who, with the aid of the
Holy Spirit began to understand what it was that was going on, on the earth at
this time, and that is that God was judging the people who were sinning against
Him. It is Satan using the Antichrist
who is causing people, these people seen in this fifth seal to be killed.
We have been following what our Lord said in the Olivet Discourse
which, is found in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, but mostly from Matthew
24. We have talked about the first seven
verses in Matthew 24 which describe the events that we have seen in the first
four seals. Now we will look at Matthew
24:9 “"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and
you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” MacArthur writes “The events that marks the
midpoint of the Tribulation, the ‘abomination of desolation,’ does not occur
until verse 15 of Matthew 24. Therefore
the persecution Jesus spoke of (that associated with the fifth seal) will begin
the first half of the Tribulation and escalate in the second half, after the
abomination of desolation.” Now we have
written about the abomination of desolation in our study of Revelation and also
in the book of Daniel, for it is Daniel who mentions it in Daniel chapter nine
and then our Lord mentions it in Matthew 24.
There was a preview of this when a man named Antiochus Epiphanes went
into the Holy of Holies and sacrificed a pig in the second century BC. This pictured what Antichrist will do at the
midpoint of the Tribulation. We read
what now restrains him will be taken away in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 “6 And you
know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the
mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so
until he is taken out of the way.” This
is interesting in that there are some people who believe in a mid-tribulation
Rapture and this is one of the verses that they use to make sense of this
theory. I do not agree with this for I
have always believed that the Church will be taken out before the beginning of
the Tribulation Period for God does not deal with the Church in the Tribulation
for we see no mention of it after chapter three. God will be dealing with Israel during the Tribulation
Period along with those who are opposing Israel.
I can see now that I will not finish with this section
today, but I do want to make something clear, something that has been on my
mind for a while that has to do with something similar that we find in
Revelation. There will be a false
religion during the Tribulation period that is seen in Revelation chapter
sixteen and this religion will be responsible partly for the persecution of
true believers. Now today we have detonations
who do not believe that God will ever deal with Israel again. They take the promises that are given to
Israel in Scripture and apply them to the church, and this is wrong. In doing this there are many of them who are
against Israel at this time in history, a time when all true believers should
be in support of Israel. There are some
who even believe that the church began in the Garden of Eden. I visited one such church while on vacation
last year in Florida and the Pastor of that church made reference to the church
being in the Old Testament. I emailed
him to see if he had though he made an error to which he replied that he had
not. I emailed him again stating that
the Bible teaches that the Church age began on the day of Pentecost in Acts
chapter two. He never emailed me again
and I never went back there again. It is
sad to me to see how Satan has blinded the eyes of true believers who think
that God is done with Israel. Just read
Romans 9-12 and you will see that God is not done with Israel. In our next chapter we study Revelation seven
we will see that God calls 12,000 men from each tribe of Israel to spread the
good news during the Tribulation Period.
If He was done with Israel how could He do that?
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Be like the
Bereans and study the Word of God carefully so that I am not like those who
have wrong ideas of what it says.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and to live in the love that Christ has for me as I better
understand that love He has for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Moses.”
Today’s Bible
question: “How long was Moses on Mount
Sinai?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/25/2015 10:45 AM
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