SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/10/2015
9:47 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction to Tribulation Saints
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
7:9-17
Message of the
verses: “9 After these things I looked, and behold, a
great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and
peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in
white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a
loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to
the Lamb." 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and
around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces
before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, "Amen, blessing and glory
and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God
forever and ever. Amen."
“13 Then one of the elders answered, saying
to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where
have they come from?" 14 I said to
him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones
who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15
"For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve
Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His
tabernacle over them. 16 "They will
hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor
any heat; 17 for the Lamb in the center
of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the
water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes."”
I have been following much of this study of Revelation
from the teaching of John MacArthur, listening to his sermons and reading his
commentary, while when I first studied the book of Revelation in 2005 I
followed the commentary of Warren Wiersbe.
The first time through I did not write as much as I am doing this time
and therefore it is taking me longer each day to go over the passages that I am
looking at. John MacArthur begins
chapter seventeen in his commentary by entitling the chapter “Tribulation
Saints.” I found it very interesting and
informative to look at the introduction to this chapter and want to share some
of the things that I learned from that introduction. Now I can’t tell you why I do things the way
I do, but one of the strange things that I do is whenever I look at a magazine there
are many times I begin at the back and then work my way to the front. I told my daughter this and she replied that
she did the same thing too. At any rate
I want to begin with what MacArthur wrote at the end of his commentary because
it helped me out to better understand what this last part of Revelation chapter
seven was saying. He wrote: “Revelation 7:9-17 describes that vast
multitude of people from all the nations of the world who will be saved during
the coming time of tribulation. This
could include those of Israel who are saved during the preaching of the
144,000. There is nothing in the
terminology of the passage that excludes Jews.
Rather, the phrase ‘every nation’ could include them.”
I will give the upcoming outline that we will be looking
at over the next few days at the end of this SD, but now I want to go over something
that to me, is important and is eluted to in this passage where John writes
about all of the nations where people will be saved during this time of
tribulation. In my devotions I have been
reading two chapters of Revelation and at times one chapter of Ezekiel in the
morning and today I began with Revelation chapters one and two which I will now
quote one of the verses: “Re 1:7 BEHOLD,
HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who
pierced Him; and all the
tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.” The highlighted part is what I want to write
briefly about as it is something that has become near and dear to my
heart. John uses the word “tribes” and
not races and as Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis says believers have dropped
the ball when it comes to this issue of race.
The truth of this is we are all one race, the human race and in one of
his lectures that I have seen on Youtube he explains where the different “tribes”
or color of people came from. I will not
have the time nor the intelligence to talk about this as he does, but he does
say that when Adam and Eve were created by God that every tribe and color of
people came from them. Some people mistakenly
believe in evolution while I think the truth is that de-evolution is what is
going on as we are getting worse off and not better off. This is all because of sin and the effects of
sin. Ham speaks of dogs and says that
all forms of dogs have come from the two that were on Noah’s ark. He then goes on to say that after the dogs
began to multiply when getting off of the ark that some of them would have gone
to a colder climate where the dogs with shorter coats would then begin to die
off and only the ones with longer coats would survive and all of this has to do
with the genes that are inside the dogs.
He then brings this into humans and speaks of the genes that are in
people of which we see the different shades of people come from different
tribes of people. He states that we are
all one color, but there are different shades of people. Believers need to understand that we are all
from the human race and that is the only race that is on earth other than
animals and we did not come from animals as the evolutionists claim. At some time later when I listen to Ken Ham’s
lecture I will take notes and better understand what he talks about and then
will put more of this on a Spiritual Diary, but for the meantime remember that
we are all one race. Now back to Revelation
chapter seven.
As we look back at the history of mankind we first see
that God created Adam and Eve and they sinned so as stated above sin entered
the universe which can be seen in many different ways. God destroyed the earth in the way He had
created with the flood that Genesis six describes and so we live in a different
kind of earth than was created. Next we
see in Genesis 12:1-3 these words: “1 Now
the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your
relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the
one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."” God has promised to Abram who later became
Abraham that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. Jesus Christ came from the loins of Abraham
as he is in the bloodline of Christ as seen in the books of Matthew and
Luke. It is through Jesus Christ that
the entire world has been blessed. John
MacArthur writes “In 1 Timothy 4:10 God is designated as the “Savior of all
men, especially of believers.’ He is the
‘Savior of all men’ in a temporal, physical (common grace) sense; that is, He
allows sinners deserving of instant death and hell to continue to live on
earth. The fact that He does not destroy
them in hell immediately when they sin indicates His saving disposition. He is the Savior of believers, however, in an
eternal and spiritual sense. To those
who receive the gospel He gives eternal heaven and existence in the glories
forever.”
The problem is that when God called Abram and thus began
the people of Israel through them that they were suppose to tell others of the
truth that God saves, but they failed in doing this as they only seemed to care
for themselves and not tell the other nations (Gentiles) of this truth which as
stated is why God called them. In
Revelation chapter seven we will see the results of God’s salvation and much of
it will come through the spreading of the word by these 144,000 Jewish
evangelists that we saw at the beginning of the chapter. Israel will get another chance, and this time
they will not blow their opportunity as in this most horrible time that will
ever happen a time when our Lord said in “Mt 24:22 "Unless those days had been cut short,
no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be
cut short.” It is during this time that
the greatest revival will happen that ever happened on this earth and the
result of that is seen in Revelation 7:9-17 which is what we are about to
study.
Now at the end of John MacArthur’s introductory
commentary he writes what we will be looking at over the next several days. Now some of these topics are short and I will
try and do more than one of them in a day.
“Eight key words introduce this group:
their description location, action, association, origination, function,
protection, and provision.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: The things that I
wrote about as far as the human race is very important to me as I am one who
believes that evolution comes right from the pit of hell and the truth of where
we come from is written in the pages of Genesis. The truth of where we are going is written in
the book of Revelation and that is why I study the entire Bible as I want to
tell all who read my Spiritual Diaries the truth that is found in the Word of
God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: My desire is to love the Lord with all of my
heart, soul, mind, and strength and to better understand and live in the love
or Christ.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “A prophetess” (2 Kings 22:14).
This was a very difficult question.
Today’s Bible
question: “What information had the Jews
in Rome heard about Paul before he came?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/10/2015 11:08 AM
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