SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/1/2015
7:33 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Release
of the Demons
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
9:13-14
Message of the
verses: “13 Then the sixth angel
sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is
before God, 14 one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release
the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."”
Before I begin this Spiritual Diary I have to say that
this one has been a struggle from me to understand all that is involved in
these two verses. By God’s grace I will
do the best that I can to help us understand what these verse hold in them.
First we need to understand that in the Greek we see that
there is only a single person who is speaking, John says “I heard a voice” and
this means only one was speaking. Now we
do not know for sure who it is who is speaking, but let us give two
possibilities as to who it is that says “Release the four angels who are bound
at the great river Euphrates.” We know that
the voice comes from where the four horns of the golden altar are for John
tells us that. We also know that the Lamb
was seen near the throne in Rev. 5:6 “And I saw between the throne (with the
four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having
seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into
all the earth.” It is in verse seven
that we see Him take the scroll in order to break the seals “And He came and
took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.” We also see that He broke the seal after
taking it out of the Father’s hand as seen in 6:1 “Then I saw when the Lamb
broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures
saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come."”
Now another possibility is that the angel who John had
seen in 8:3 standing near the golden altar “Another angel came and stood at the
altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he
might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was
before the throne.” As I said we don’t
know who this was and I suppose that if God really wanted us to know that He
would have made it clear.
Now comes the hard part of this Spiritual Diary. We don’t know who spoke but we do know that
his location was near the four horns of the golden altar which is before
God. This is not the first time that John
had seen this altar which is the heavenly counterpart of the Old Testament one
which is described in Exodus 30:1-10 which we will look at in a moment. Actually John had seen this altar two times
in his visions as seen in 6:9-11 “9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the
souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of
the testimony which they had maintained; 10 and they cried out with a
loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain
from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" 11
And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they
should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow
servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would
be completed also.” Now before we go on
we need to realize or remember the purpose of this altar which was to burn
incense which symbolizes the prayers of the saints which is what we actually
saw in the verses above as the people under the altar were praying, actually
praying imprecatory intercessions to the Lord as they wanted vengeance on those
who were killing them.
Next time we saw it was in chapter 8 and verse 5 where we
read: “Then the angel took the censer
and filled it with the
fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and
sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.” The action of this angel set the stage for
the trumpet judgments that we are, and have been studying for the last few
days.
Now let us look at
Exodus 30:1-10: “1 "Moreover, you
shall make an altar as a place for burning incense; you shall make it of acacia
wood. 2 “Its length shall be a cubit, and its width a cubit, it shall be
square, and its height shall be two cubits; its horns shall be of one piece
with it. 3 “You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and its sides all
around, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding all around for it. 4 “You
shall make two gold rings for it under its molding; you shall make them on its
two side walls-on opposite sides-and they shall be holders for poles with which
to carry it. 5 “You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with
gold. 6 "You shall put this altar
in front of the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, in front of the
mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you. 7
“Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it; he shall burn it every morning when
he trims the lamps. 8 “When Aaron trims the lamps at twilight, he shall burn
incense. There shall be perpetual incense before the LORD throughout your
generations. 9 "You shall not offer any strange incense on this altar, or
burnt offering or meal offering; and you shall not pour out a drink offering on
it. 10 “Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year; he shall make
atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year
throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD."”
I wrote the following on July 17,2008: “The altar of incense is a picture of prayer,
and this can be seen in Psalm 141:2 where David writes, “May my prayer be
counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my hands as the evening
offering.” John also speaks of this in
Revelations 5:8, “When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the
twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and
golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” John speaks again of this in Revelations
8:3-4, “ Another angel came and stood at
the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that
he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was
before the throne. And the smoke of the
incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s
hand.”
“The alter of incense stood before the veil that
separated the holy of holies from the holy place and the priest burned incense
on it each morning and evening when he trimmed the lamps.
“Now the fire that the priest used to burn the incense
came from the brazen altar, which is where the sacrifices were offered to
God. Warren Wiersbe points out that this
suggests that true prayer must be based on the work of Christ on the cross and
also our complete dedication to God.” I
also wrote the following later on that day:
““A true fervency
in prayer isn’t a religious emotion we work up ourselves; rather, it’s a
blessing that God sends down as we yield ourselves to Him.” This is a quote from Warren Wiersbe’s book on
Exodus. James writes in James
5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so
that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish
much.” James is saying that our prayers
are not to be coldhearted for that is not effective prayer.”
John MacArthur writes “As noted in the discussion of
8:4-5 in chapter 18 of this volume, the incense altar was located in the front
of the veil that separated the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence dwelt, from
the Holy Place. No one but the high
priest could enter the Holy of Holies and he only on the Day of Atonement. But the high priest was permitted to enter the
Holy Place, and was commanded to burn incense on the incense altar morning and
evening. While sacrifices were not
normally offered on the incense altar, the high priest was required to offer a
sin offering on it once a year. That illustrates the important
biblical truth that atonement provides the basis for prayer, worship, and
communion with God. Now one whose sins
have not been atoned for has access to God.” This highlighted portion of his quote is a
very important thing to remember.
We will continue to look at this important aspect of
prayer and incense and other things in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: God has speaking
to me about prayer in some of the Spiritual Diaries that I have been doing beginning
last year when we studied 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The two quotes, one from Warren Wiersbe from
my SD from July of 2008 and this one from John MacArthur has spoken to my heart
today and I am thankful.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, mind,
soul, and strength, and to better understand and live in the love of the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Stephen” (Acts 7:56).
Today’s Bible
question: “By faith Moses forsook what
country?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/1/2015 8:17 PM
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