SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2015
8:42 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Reason for Fear PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
6:12-14
Message of the
verses: “12 I looked when He broke
the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as
sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 13 and the stars
of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken
by a great wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up,
and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”
In this second part of “The Reason for Fear,” we will
begin to look at the different elements that are found in these verses and
begin to comment on them.
The first thing we will look at is that “there was a
great earthquake.” We can go back into
history and read about many earthquakes that have literally killed millions of
people, but the earthquake that John is writing about here will actually shake
more than the earth. John MacArthur in
describing this writes: “Seismos (earthquake) literally means ‘a
shaking.’ In Matthew 8:24 it describes a
great storm on the Sea of Galilee, and the Septuagint uses it in Joel 2:10 to
describe the heavens trembling.”
God has used a shaking to get peoples attention in the
past as in the case when the Law was given as seen in Exodus 19:18 where we
read: “Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke
because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the
smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.” There have been other times too like when
Paul and Silas were in the Philippian jail and God shook the jail so that all
of the chains of the prisoners fell off.
He did this to get the attention of the jailer in order for Paul to
present the gospel to him so that he and his whole family would be saved, and
thus began the Philippian church. God
also used these shaking to judge people, for instance in the other book I am
currently studying, the book of Ezekiel where he wrote “"In My zeal and in
My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake
in the land of Israel (38:19).” As we
look at reasons for fear then an earthquake is among the top reasons for people
to be afraid. The earthquake that John
writes about here as a part of this sixth seal will be one that will bring
great fear and probably much death and destruction upon the earth and it will
even cause trouble in the sun and moon as we see in the second part of this verse
which reads “the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair.” Sackcloth was a rough material like burlap is
something many people may not remember when feed came in burlap bags. In Bible times it was used when a person was
mourning or when they wanted to confess their sins and were greatly sadden
about it. In John’s description the
sackcloth would have come from black goats.
John MacArthur quotes Dr. Henry M. Morris who explains what could cause
this phenomenon: “The great earthquake
described here…for the first time in history is worldwide in scope. Seismologists and geophysicists in recent
years have learned a great deal about the structure of the earth and about the
cause and nature of earthquakes. The
earth’s solid crust is traversed with a complex network of faults, with all
resting upon a plastic mantle whose structure is still largely unknown. Whether the crust consists of great moving
plates is a current matter of controversy among geophysicists, so the ultimate cause
of earthquakes is still not known. In
all likelihood, the entire complex of crustal instabilities is a remnant of the
phenomena of the great Flood, especially the breakup of the fountains of the
great deep.
“In any case, the vast worldwide network of unstable
earthquake belts around the world suddenly will begin to slip and fracture on a
global basis and a gigantic earthquake will ensue. This is evidently, and naturally, accompanied
by tremendous volcanic eruptions, spewing vast quantities of dust and steam and
gasses into the upper atmosphere. It is
probably these that will cause the sun to be darkened and the moon to appear
blood-red.” All we have to do is think
about how the earthquake in Greenland cause so much trouble a few years ago
causing planes to be rerouted coming from and to Europe to understand a small
bit of what Dr. Morris is speaking about.
We have looked before at what the prophet Joel has
written about what will happen concerning the “Day of the Lord,” “"The sun will be turned into darkness
And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes
(2:31).”
This SD is shorter than I would like it to be, but my
wife and I are on vacation and I have driven 1100 + miles in the last two days
and I am tired, but wanted to keep up with my SD’s on Revelation.
3/31/2015 9:29 PM
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