SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/14/2015
8:52 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: Key
Word Five, Origination
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
7:13-14
Message of the
verses: “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.”
In this section we see that John becomes involves in the
vision as the angel asks him a question “These who are clothed in the white
robes, who are they, and where have they come from?"” Now we can be sure that the angel knew the
answer to this question and so one may wonder why the angel asked this
question. John MacArthur quotes Dr.
Robert Thomas to help us out with why the angel asked this question, and if
memory serves me correct he was working at the Master’s Seminar when this quote
was given, and that Seminar is a part of the ministry where John MacArthur
preaches at. He writes “This exemplifies
the dialogue format used from time to time to convey an explanation of a vision
(cf. Jer. 1:11, 13; Amos 7:8; 8:2; Zech. 4:2, 5). This tool shows that visions were not given
for the purpose of spectacular displays, but to convey revelation, the details of
which were not to be missed.” Let’s take
a look at some of these verses that Dr. Thomas quoted: “The word of the LORD came to me saying,
"What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "I see a rod of an
almond tree." The word of the LORD came to me a second time saying,
"What do you see?" And I said, "I see a boiling pot, facing away
from the north." (Jer. 1:11, 13.) The
LORD said to me, "What do you see, Amos?" And I said, "A plumb
line." Then the Lord said, "Behold I am about to put a plumb line In
the midst of My people Israel. I will spare them no longer (Amos 7:8)” “He said to me, "What do you see?"
And I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on
the top of it, and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of
the lamps which are on the top of it; So the angel who was speaking with me
answered and said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" And I
said, "No, my lord’ (Zech. 4:2, 5).”
This is something that I never thought about too much, but as we look at
these different verses we can understand what Dr. Thomas means in his
quotation.
What can we see from the answer to this question when the
elder says “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.” What we can see is that there will be people
saved during this time period called the Tribulation. We have already stated that this time period
will be the worst ever to happen on planet earth, and that God’s wrath is taken
out on sinful men as the time for His wrath has arrived and so as we think
about this in terms of God’s attributes we can better understand it. We know that God is love as this is the most
popular attribute that God has, but He is also a God of wrath, and of justice,
and we can see both of these along with others during this time period. God is a saving God as He is a God who
pardons. God is long-suffering and He
certainly been long-suffering with the people on earth. God is sovereign and He was doing what He wanted
to do at this time on planet earth. Now
let’s focus in on the fact that God is saving many people during this terrible
time on planet earth and the proof of it is that all the souls we see in this
vision have come out of the great Tribulation as the elder said, and as we
stated this will be the greatest harvest of souls since the world began which
is something we should praise the Lord for.
Now let us look at Revelation 9:20-21 “20 The rest of
mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of
their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver
and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk;
21 and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their
immorality nor of their thefts.” This
comes after the end of the trumpet judgments which we will look at later, but
what we see here is that perhaps not too many people will come to know the Lord
as the Tribulation wanes on, as we see from these verses that man’s heart can
become very hard to the truths of the gospel until there is no hope for him at
all. Next we will look at Revelation
16:9 where we read something similar: “Men
were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the
power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory.” Now let us go back to something we learned in
our study of 2 Thessalonians and look at chapter two and verses ten to
twelve: “10 and with all the deception
of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of
the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a
deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that
they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in
wickedness.” There are some that teach
that these verses are speaking of people who have heard the gospel before the
rapture takes place and since they have not accepted it then they will not be
able to, but these verses seem to better fit in the later part of the
Tribulation when men’s hearts are very hard.
John MacArthur writes “John’s bewildered reply to the
elder is emphatic: ‘My lord, you know,’ and is both a confession of ignorance
and a request for further revelation. John’s calling the elder lord did not
ascribe deity to him; he was using the word kurios
(lord) in the common manner as a title of great respect. This is the sort of respect John shows
heavenly beings in 19:10 and 22:8-9. John
had been taught by the Lord that few would be saved (Matt. 7:13-14; 22:14) and
had seen the churches in decline, so that this great crowd of the redeemed may
have been incomprehensible to him. The
heavenly elder’s reply confirmed the identity of these believers as ‘the ones
who come out of the great tribulation’ (cf. Matt. 24:21). They lived into it, were redeemed during it,
and have now come out of it through death by violence, natural causes, and
martyrdom. The phrase ‘the ones who come
out’ translates the present durative participle of the verb erchomai. It depicts a prolonged process; this group
will keep growing as people keep dying during the Tribulation (especially the
last half the great tribulation).
Therefore the Rapture of the church is not in view in this verse, since
it is single, instantaneous, and sudden event (cv. 1 Cor. 15:51-52). The elder’s description of these believers as
having ‘come out of the great tribulation’ clearly distinguishes them from any
other group of redeemed people in history.
The term ‘great tribulation’ refers to a specific time in the future
that is unique in all of human history.
It refers to the future eschatological day of divine judgment immediately
before Jesus Christ return to establish His earthly kingdom. All the judgments described during this time,
form the sixt seal through the trumpet and bowl judgments, have no parallel in
human history. Never has such worldwide
devastation happened. The term ‘great
tribulation’ cannot describe the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 or any other
historical event. This term must
describe a future time of divine punishment on the whole fallen world; the ‘treat
day of [the] wrath’ of God and the Lamb (6:17) Jesus Himself coined the phrase ‘great
tribulation’ (Matt. 24:21) and limited
it to the second half of Daniel’s Seventieth Week (Matt. 24:13-22; Mark
13:14-20; cf. Dan. 9:27). Its limit will
be forty-two months or 1,260 days (11:2-3).
Of this period Thomas writes,
“It is the superlatively great crisis of trial through
which all rebels against God must pass just before Christ’s second coming. The servants of God will not suffer the
direct effects of God’s wrath. They will
be untouched by (Caird). The saints on
earth will not be exempt from the ire of God’s enemies during this period,
however. During both the Great
Tribulation and the three-and-one-half years of tribulation before it, they
will bear the brunt of suffering caused by anti-God animosities. The intensity of persecution will be a marked
increase over the experienced before this end-time arrives and will increase
again when the seven-year period reaches it midpoint. Some will have already been martyred by the
end of the sixth seal (cf. 6:9-11) and many more secured in other ways.”
The elder describes these people as having been clothed
in the white robes as they had been washed and were made white in the blood of
the Lamb. We have already spoken about
the word white and how that word does not describe very well the brightness of
their robes. Being washed in blood in a
human perspective would not make you white, but in a spiritual perspective that
is exactly what happens when a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, as
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin and as you receive His
righteousness you are seen by God as perfectly pure and righteous.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I was very happy
to better understand that the verse in 2 Thessalonians does not speak of those
who have heard that truth of the Gospel and then could not be saved after the
Rapture. It is comforting to me that if
in fact the rapture is near and I am telling people the truth of the Gospel and
then the rapture comes that I am not telling them in vain.
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 of the Lord as I better understand
it.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Crete” (Acts 27:21).
Today’s Bible
question: “What king of Israel had a
navy?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/14/2015 10:16 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment