SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/22/2015
9:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Second
Trumpet
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
8:8-9
Message of the
verses: “8 The second angel sounded,
and something like
a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood,
9 and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had
life, died; and a
third of the ships were
destroyed.”
I want to first of all quote something that I wrote on
June 14, 2005 on these two verses which speak of the second trumpet
judgment: “This second trumpet judgment
is another judgment that is on the earth, while the latter judgments have
demons involved with them. I have heard
different things to help describe this judgment, such as the burning mountain
that was thrown into the sea could be a missile with a cobalt bomb on it that
would cause the sea to turn red from the cobalt such as seen in “red”
tides. It could also be a meteor that
comes from outer space. At any rate God
is in charge of sending these judgments to His earth and this one will be very
bad as it will cause a third of the sea to turn to blood, or at least red, and
a third of all marine life to die and a third of all ships to be destroyed, and
this will have a devastation effect upon those who live on planet earth.” I have mentioned that it was the end time
prophecies that the Lord used to bring me to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ
and that I read and listened to Hal Lindsey in my early years of being a
believer. One of the things that he
taught from the book of Revelation was that man is perfectly capable to destroy
this planet because of the technology that he has and so he would go through
these judgments and write possibilities of how man could be used by God to
fulfill these judgments. He quoted 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.” As
I stated in our last SD many people have different ideas on how God will bring
about these judgments, but the main thing to remember is that God is in charge
and that He will fulfill these judgments as He sees fit, but again it is
interesting to listen to different people as they describe how they think that
these judgments will be fulfilled by God.
Another thing to remember is that John was writing this around 96 AD and
therefore was using language from that time period to try and describe what he
was seeing and if he actually did see a missile fall into the sea he would
describe it in first century language.
We can’t neglect why all of these judgments are happening as we study
Revelation and not get so caught up in how they are going to happen. God will take back planet earth from evil men
and from Satan and his demons and it will be accomplished through these
judgments and at the end of these judgments Jesus Christ will return to take
over Planet Earth and Satan will be in the lake of fire along with all of the
evil men of that time and Christ will rule from Jerusalem for 1000 years as we
will learn, but even that is not the end of the book as we will see later on as
we continue to study it.
Notice
the words from verse eight “something like” as John describes what this second
trumpet entails, as he again uses a simile.
Now we saw the first trumpet fall on the earth while this one falls on
the oceans. If I am not mistaken the Atlantic
Ocean is about one third of the oceans, so it is possible that this happens
there. The oceans were given to mankind
as a blessing from God and they provide many things for man such as food and
oxygen as much of the oxygen comes from the phytoplankton and algae that are in
the seas. Rain comes many times from the
sea as water evaporates from the ocean and then is transported by winds to
land, so the oceans are very important to man, and this judgment is on one
third of the ocean waters. John
MacArthur writes “But people have repaid God’s gracious provision with
ingratitude and idolatry, revering the sea as the supposed source of their
remotest evolutionary ancestors. As He
devastated the land environment, the true God judges the sea.”
The view that John MacArthur has is as follows: “This is evidently a giant meteorite or
asteroid, surrounded by flaming gases set ablaze by the friction of the earth’s
atmosphere, on a collision course with the earth.” If what he speculates happens then this will
be like one of the movies that I have seen as mankind watches from afar as the
meteorite or asteroid heads toward earth and they can do nothing about it. Of course this will happen and many people
and creatures will die because of this judgment.
The red color of the sea could come from cobalt as
suggested for after all a red tide comes from cobalt, and or, it could come
from the dying animals in it as their blood turns the ocean red. God did turn the Nile River red as one of the
judgments against Egypt so there is no reason to believe that this kind of
thing could not happen again. Another
thing this judgment will effect is that a third of the ships on the oceans will
be destroyed and perhaps this will come from the giant waves that will happen
because of whatever it was that falls into the seas.
MacArthur finishes this section on this second trumpet
judgment by writing “So the first two trumpets will bring devastating judgment
on both the land and the sea, which are the beginning of the final catastrophes
God will unleash on the sinful, rebellious world.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is hard to fathom
all the devastation that this earth and the people who live on it will have to
endure. One of the reasons that I write
these Spiritual Diaries and post them onto the internet is so people can read
about these things that are soon to come and realize that they do not have to
go through them. They need a ticket to
leave planet earth before these events begin to happen and the price of that
ticket has been paid for by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for the sins of
mankind and all one has to do is accept the exchange that He has for them. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our
behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him 2 Cor. 5:21).” It’s a matter of believing faith to receive
this gift of salvation and be assured if the Rapture happened today they would
not be here for the events we are studying about.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and to better understand and live in the love He has for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Bilhah” (Genesis 35:25).
Today’s Bible
question: As a physician, what
particular ministry of Christ does Luke give special prominence?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/22/2015 9:55 AM
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