SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/27/2015
11:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Plan For Judgment PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation 11:18b.
Message of the
verses: “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 those who fear Your name, the small and the
great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
Do you remember the term “proleptic aorist” that we
looked at in verse fifteen? We said that
even though the event has not already happened the verb shows that in the mind
of God it has already happened. I
mentioned earlier that I had heard of this as being in the prophetic tense. What we are speaking of as already happened
in the mind of God is His wrath, and it is just as sure of coming as His
Kingdom coming. You know many people
have difficulty with the fact that God’s wrath is coming. One of the attributes of God is His wrath,
and we have been looking at this since the sixth chapter of Revelation as we
looked at the different judgments that have been given out by the Lord. Remember we looked at Revelation 15:1 which
states “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels
who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.” I am not sure why people think that God does
not demonstrate His wrath on sinful people when this verse makes it clear that
it will happen.
The fact that God’s wrath will be seen during these end
times is spoken of in different verses by different OT authors. Let us look at a few of them beginning with
Isaiah 24:17-23 “17 Terror and pit and snare Confront you, O inhabitant of the earth. 18 Then
it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit, And
he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare; For the windows above
are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake. 19 The earth is broken
asunder, The earth is split through, The earth is shaken violently. 20 The
earth reels to and fro like a drunkard And it totters like a shack, For its
transgression is heavy upon it, And it will fall, never to rise again. 21 So it will happen in that day,
That the LORD will punish the host of heaven on high, And the kings of the
earth on earth. 22
They will be gathered together Like prisoners in the dungeon, And will be
confined in prison; And after many days they will be punished. 23 Then
the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, For the LORD of hosts will reign
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, And His glory will be before His elders.”
Isaiah 26:20-21 “20 Come, my people, enter into your
rooms And close your doors behind you; Hide for a little while Until
indignation runs its course. 21 For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place To punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her
bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain.”
Isaiah 30:27-33 “
27 Behold, the name of the LORD comes from a remote place; Burning is His anger and dense
is His smoke; His lips are filled with indignation And His tongue is
like a consuming fire; 28 His breath is
like an overflowing torrent, Which reaches to the neck, To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve,
And to put in the jaws of
the peoples the bridle which leads to ruin. 29 You will have songs as in
the night when you keep the festival, And gladness of heart as when one marches
to the sound of the flute, To go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of
Israel. 30 And the LORD will cause His voice of authority to be heard, And the
descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger, And in the flame of a
consuming fire In cloudburst, downpour and hailstones. 31 For at the voice of
the LORD Assyria will be terrified, When He strikes with the rod. 32 And every
blow of the rod of punishment, Which the LORD will lay on him, Will be with the
music of tambourines and lyres; And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will
fight them. 33 For Topheth has long been ready, Indeed, it has been prepared
for the king. He has made it deep and large, A pyre of fire with plenty of
wood; The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire. “
We have already looked at Ezekiel 38-39 in our study
which was recently completed from the book of Ezekiel and these chapters
depicts the gathering of unbelievers to fight against Israel in what is called the
battle of God and Magog. We learned in
these chapters that God will actually cause these nations to come against
Israel so that He can destroy them for they have not been kind to Israel and so
God will punish them for what they have done to Israel. Many believe that this will happen during the
Tribulation Period. Ezekiel 38:16-23
says “You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land.
It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so
that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their
eyes, O Gog." 17 ’Thus says the
Lord GOD, "Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My
servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years
that I would bring you against them? 18 “It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against
the land of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount
up in My anger. 19 “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. 20 “The fish of the
sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things
that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will
shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep
pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground. 21 “I will call
for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD.
"Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22 “With pestilence and
with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on
his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with
hailstones, fire and brimstone. 23
"I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in
the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am the LORD."’”
John MacArthur writes “The sounding of the seventh
trumpet marks the fulfillment of the great judgment event that the prophets
foresaw and saints of all ages have longed for (cf. Pss. 3:7; 7:6; 35:1-8;
44:26; 68:1-2). It will be the time when
God pours out His wrath on His enemies.”
We will continue looking at the rest of verse eighteen in
our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I realize that it
is hard for many to look only at God as a God who is love, and He is that, but
He also is a God of wrath and because of His holiness He has to punish sin, and
He has done this on the cross when He took out His wrath on His Son, but people
have to admit that they are sinners and confess that they are sinners to the
Lord and then accept the fact that Christ died for them and then they will be
saved. Otherwise God’s wrath will come
upon those who have not accepted His free gift of salvation.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to trust fully upon the Lord to be
able to do His will as I speak to our church family this evening on praying for
our Pastors.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Spirit which is of God” (1
Cor. 2:12).
Today’s Bible
question: “At what hour of the day did
the fever leave the noblemans’s son?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/27/2015 12:16 PM
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