SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/24/2015
8:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Praise for
God’s Sovereignty PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
11:15-17
Message of the
verses: “15 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."
16 And the twenty-four elders, who sit
on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying, "We give You thanks, O Lord God,
the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and
have begun to reign.”
What we see in these verses happened in heaven, all of
the praise of what was about to take place on earth, but these effects would
take some time to happen on the earth.
However they were going to happen on earth soon as this is a promise
from God that the kingdom of the world, that is Satan’s kingdom would be taken
away from him and given back to God and His Son where it should be as this is
one of the purposes of what we are studying in chapters 6-19. The proclamation we see here has to do with
this seven trumpet or third woe as we read the following in chapter fifteen and
verse one: “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.” Now we mentioned in our last SD that what we
will see in chapters 12-14 is the tribulation period through the eyes of
Antichrist who is controlled by Satan, so even though we see the sounding of
the trumpet in our text today the events of it will not be seen on earth until
we get to the fifteenth chapter which previews these events and the 16th
chapter we see these seven bowl judgments.
It is a bit complicated, but worth taking the time to understand it.
As I stated the highlighted portion of verse fifteen
speaks of “the kingdom of this world,” and that kingdom is headed up by Satan
as we spoke of in our last SD. Jesus
Christ did not dispute this when He came to earth, but by His death, burial and
resurrection He defeated the world the flesh and the devil, and set up His
spiritual kingdom which is what the Church is involved in at this time, but
what we see in Revelation 6-19 is Him taking back His kingdom and when He
returns in chapter 19 will set up His promised earthly Kingdom for 1000 years.
Now I want to quote John MacArthur here to help us
understand the words “has become” fond in verse fifteen: “The tense of the verb translated ‘has come’
is what Greek grammarians refer to as a proleptic aorist. It describes a future event that is so
certain that it can be spoken of as if it has already taken place. The perspective of the verb tense looks to a
point after the action of the seventh trumpet will have run its course. Though this event is future from the point of
chronological progress reached in the series, it is so certain that the verb
form used views it as an already accomplished fact (cf. Luke 19:9). The timeless heaven rejoices as if the
long-anticipated day when Christ will establish His kingdom has already
arrived, although some time on earth must elapse before that actually
happens. The phrase ‘the kingdom of our
Lord and His Christ’ emphasizes two realities.
Kurios (Lord) usually refers
to Jesus throughout the New Testament, while in Revelation it more often refers
to God the Father, thus emphasizing their equality of nature. This phrase also describes the kingdom in its
broadest sense, looking forward to divine rule over the creation and the new
creation. No differentiation is made
between the earthly millennial kingdom and the eternal kingdom, as, for
example, Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15:24-28.
At the end of the thousand years, the millennial kingdom will merge with
the eternal kingdom, in which Christ ‘will reign forever and ever.’ Once the reign of Christ begins, it will
change form, but never end or be interrupted.”
We will continue the thought of the glorious truth that
Jesus Christ will one day rule the earth in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I find it very
comforting to know that what God says in His Word about what will happen in the
future will happen as explained by John MacArthur speaking of the proleptic
aorist tense of the Greek verb seen in our passage today. I had heard of what was called the “prophetic
tense” of a verb and perhaps this is the same thing.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Fear the Lord and to love the Lord with all
of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to live in the love of the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Tamar” (2 Samuel 13:1).
Today’s Bible
question: Now this should be a really easy
one: “Which book sets forth the ultimate
triumph of the kingdom of Christ?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/24/2015 8:54 AM
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