SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/30/2015 8:54 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction to Revelation 12
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
12:1-6
Message
of the verses: “ 1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman
clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars; 2 and she was with child;
and she *cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. 3 Then another
sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and
ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 And his tail swept away a
third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood
before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he
might devour her child. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to
rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and
to His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place
prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two
hundred and sixty days.”
These are the verses that we will be
looking at over the next few days as we begin the second half of the book of
Revelation. John MacArthur entitles this
chapter in commentary “The War of the Ages PT-1: The Prelude.”
I can say that I am excited to begin this twelfth chapter because I have
learned where this chapter and also chapters 13-14 fit into the chronological
part of the book of Revelation. We
learned that chapters 12-14 are a review of what we have been seeing happen
through the eyes of the Antichrist, while chapters 6-11 were seen through the
eyes of the Lord. We are not going to be
looking at the “beast” or the “Antichrist” and see more about him and also more
about Satan, and I believe that we will also be looking at the “False Prophet”
which is the sidekick of the Antichrist.
Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goes
before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.” We then read in the 14th chapter
of the book of Isaiah “12 "How you have fallen from heaven,
O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the
earth, You who have weakened the nations! 13 “But you said in your heart, ’I will ascend to
heaven; I will
raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the
recesses of the north. 14 ’I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” This of course is speaking of Lucifer who after
the sin recorded with these five “I wills” became Satan as he committed the
first sin against God. Lucifer was the
highest Cherub, but he forfeited that position because of His sin. Ezekiel writes in 28:14 “"You were the
anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there. You were on the holy
mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.” All of these things that we are reading about
that concern the fall of Satan happened before man was created on planet
earth. Now I must say that this is my
opinion, but my opinion also is that it did not happen too far in advance of
the creation of man. The timetable for
these events is not exact but there can be made some conjectures as to when
this happened by studying the Word of God.
After man was created the fallen
Lucifer, now Satan brought his temptation to Eve in the garden of Eden and we
learn that Adam also fell, and in fact was responsible to God for this sin as
we see from New Testament writings. 1Ti 2:13 For it was Adam who was first created,
and then Eve. 1Ti 2:14 And it was not
Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”
As we look at “The War of the Ages”
we see that it began in heaven as we saw when we looked at the chapters from
both Isaiah and Ezekiel and with that war one third of the angelic beings
followed Satan. This left two thirds of
them to be with God. God created many
angels as we can see from the numbers given in the book of Revelation. We saw two hundred million demons come on to the
earth “Re 9:16 The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred
million; I heard the number of them.”
Next this war came to earth and
Satan claimed the kingdom of earth from man when he caused the first couple to
fall into sin. And thus the war of the
Ages was off and running. We are now going to begin to look at the final
battle, which will end with Satan, the Antichrist, the False Prophet, and all
the demons along with unregenerate man to be cast into hell, a place where God
said was created for the devil and his angels.
John MacArthur writes “The sounding of the seventh trumpet will proclaim
the triumphant victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over the usurper, Satan: ‘Then the seventh angel sounded; and there
were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the
kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever’
(11:15). There will be joy I heaven
because Christ has defeated Satan and established His eternal kingdom. Thus, the outcome of the war between Satan
and God is not in doubt. Christ ultimate
triumph is certain.”
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9:22 AM 5/30/2015 12:52 PM
MacArthur concludes and also
previews what we will be looking at in these six verses: “Before describing that final war, the inspired
apostle John first introduces the main characters involved in it: The woman (Israel), the dragon (Satan), and
the male child (Jesus Christ).” In the
next few days we will be looking at these different characters to see what
their roles will be in the Tribulation Period.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am
thankful for the prophetic truth that is found in the Word of God. While putting the spiritual armor one of the
pieces is the “helmet of the hope of salvation” which is actually spoken of in “1Th
5:8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate
of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.” Putting on that helmet is saying that we
understand that Jesus Christ is coming again and that will help me throughout
the day by knowing this. “Tit 2:13
looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God
and Savior, Christ Jesus,”
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
Christ.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Elim”
Exodus 15:27.”
Today’s
Bible question: “Who pleaded with Joseph
in behalf of Benjamin, when the silver
cup was found in Benjamin’s sack?”
Answer
in our next SD.
5/30/2015
1:04 PM
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