Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The Celebration in Heaven PT-1 (Rev. 12:10-12)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/10/2015 9:53 AM

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  The Celebration in Heaven PT-1

Bible Reading & Meditation                                           Reference:  Revelation 12:10-12

            Message of the verses:  “10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. 11 “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.  12 "For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time."”

            When we read about this celebration we can understand why those who are in heaven will be rejoicing because of the removal of Satan and his demons from heaven.  There will be no more accusing of people in heaven by Satan and also there will be no more sinfulness in heaven due to Satan and his angels being there.

            The celebration begins with a “loud voice from heaven” but who this comes from is not revealed.  John MacArthur states that this is a collective voice as we see the word “our” which indicates that this comes from more than one person.  Perhaps this comes from those who have been redeemed and are not in heaven.  The first thing that these redeemed saints proclaim is that “the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come.”  MacArthur writes “Salvation is to be understood in its broadest sense.  It encompasses not on the redemption of individual believers, but also the deliverance of all creation from the ravages of sin’s curse and the power of Satan (cf. Rom 8:19-22).  ‘Power’ speaks of God’s omnipotence, His triumphant, sovereign power that crushes all opposition and will establish His ‘kingdom’ (cf.11:15).  They rejoice further that the ‘authority of…Christ has come (cf. 11:15).”  Now we can see some of the things that are happening in this section from the second Psalm, a Psalm that is a Messianic Psalm.  “’Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession Psalm 2:8).”  We have mentioned that when we read prophecies like this one that in the mind of God they have already happened, and even though this event that we are reading about in Revelation 12 have not yet happened during the Tribulation Period the people in heaven treat it as if it has already happened, for in a short time it will come about as we will see as we continue to study the book of Revelation.  Satan has not yet been thrown into the lake of fire along with his demons and the antichrist, and also the false prophet, but as we read this section we can see that the celebration shows that these things are about to happen. 

            This event has been predicted in the pages of Scripture for a long time and when it comes to past Jesus Christ will receive His kingdom on earth.  Think about what is known as the “Lord’s Prayer,” and one of the phrases is “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”  In that phrase is the prayer that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ will come and it is seen in this section as happening.  This happens because of what has happened to Satan who is “the accuser of our brethren and has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.”  As mentioned Satan accuses the brethren all of the time in heaven, but to no avail for all who have been truly born again have been washed in the blood of the Lord and have been forgiven of all of their sins.  We see an example of this accusation that goes on in heaven from the book of Job, and this is just a preview of what went and continues to go on in heaven, but once Satan is thrown out of heaven this stops and the saints are looking forward to when Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire and Christ’s kingdom will be the only kingdom on earth.  We will continue this section in our next SD.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  What is seen here is something that I can celebrate even at this time for as stated this will happen.  One of the pieces of Spiritual that I put on is the helmet of Salvation, and in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians he calls it “the helmet of the hope of salvation,” speaking of the return of Jesus Christ to the earth.  This is our hope as believers, and I look forward to it and think about it most every day.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To trust the Lord with all of the difficult situations that are going on in the life of my family at this time, trusting the Lord to work it out for our good and for His glory.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).

Today’s Bible question:  “How did Jesus answer those who asked if it was right for them to pay taxes to Cesar?”

Answer in our next SD.

6/10/2015 10:23 AM

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