SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/11/2015
10:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Celebration PT-2
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."”
In verse eleven we see that the celebration had effects
on earth as it mentions believers which are described by the word “overcomers”
something we saw earlier from the 2nd and 3rd chapters of
Revelation when we were looking at the seven churches. The problem becomes more difficult for those
who are on earth though as Satan and his demons will come to earth as seen in
verse 12: “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."” Let us look at
Rev. 12:13-17 for a preview of this “13 And when the dragon saw that he was
thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male
child. 14 But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that
she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a
time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 And the
serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he
might cause her to be swept away with the flood. 16 But the earth helped the
woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon
poured out of his mouth. 17 So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went
off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God
and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”
Even though we see all of these terrible things happening
on earth when Satan and his demons come to earth in the end they will be
soundly defeated and put into the lake of fire, but while they are all on
earth, the believers of Jesus Christ will have great trouble along with all of
the Jews who may or may not be believers at this time.
It is good to look at how the believers defeated Satan
which is seen in verse eleven which I have highlighted above. We can never defeat Satan on our own, as only
Jesus Christ has done this through His birth, life, death and resurrection from
the grave as defeated him. Paul wrote
the following to the believers in Corinth:
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,
4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful
for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every
lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every
thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
John MacArthur writes “The apostle John gave the only
basis for victory over Satan when he wrote, ‘You are from God, little children,
and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in
the world (1 John 4:4).’ It is only
through God’s power that any believer in any age can defeat Satan. Accordingly, the Tribulation believers ‘overcame’
Satan first of all ‘because of the blood of the Lamb.’ Like their martyred brethren already in
heaven, they ‘washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’
(Rev. 7:14). ‘You were not redeemed with
perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited
from your forefathers,’ wrote Peter ‘but with
precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of
Christ’ (1 Pet. 1:18-19). These
suffering believers knew the forgiveness that Paul wrote of in Romans 4:7-8 ‘Blessed
are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been
covered. Blessed is the man whose sin
the Lord will not take into account.’
The truth that ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus’ (Rom. 8:1) applied to them. No accusation
against the suffering saints of the Great Tribulation will stand, just as no
accusation against any believer in any age will stand, because the Lamb’s blood
was shed for all their sins. The first
and most important key to defeating Satan’s assaults is to ‘take the helmet of
salvation (Eph. 6:17; cf. 1 Thess. 5:8).
The unshakeable foundation of all spiritual victory is Christ’s purchase
of redemption at Calvary.”
Now we look at a second way that these Tribulation saints
overcame Satan’s assaults and that was “and because of the word of their testimony.” These Tribulation saints were similar to what
Job went through as Job did not give up, and they will not give up either, for
God will give them the strength they need to even die for the cause of Christ,
and that is the last way that they defeated Satan “and they did not love their life even when faced
with death.” Many of the
Tribulation saints will die for the cause of Christ for when you look at all of
the people that will be killed during the Tribulation period only one out of
four will be left alive at the end and some of those that are still alive will
go into the lake of fire when Christ returns and separates the sheep from the
goats as seen in “Mt 25:32 "All the
nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one
another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; Mt 25:33
and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.”
Now we will look at the last portion of these
verses: “"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."” What we see here is a joyous note followed by
a sobering warning “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."” John MacArthur writes “Thumos (wrath) refers to a violent outburst of rage. The word depicts a turbulent, emotional fury
rather than a rational anger. John
Phillips wrote, ‘Satan is now like a caged lion, enraged beyond words by the
limitations now placed upon his freedom.
He picks himself up from the dust of the earth, shakes his fist at the
sky, and glares around, choking with fury for ways to vent his hatred and his
spite upon humankind’ (Exploring
Revelation).” His rage is all the more violent because as the text says “that he has only a short
time."” We know that he only has three and a half
years for this is the time when antichrist reigns over the earth “There was
given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to
act for forty-two months was given to him (Rev. 13:5).”
We
conclude with the words of Martin Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God:
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure;
One little word shall fell him.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: We are living in
a world that is growing increasingly darker and darker. John 3:36 says “"He who believes in the
Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but
the wrath of God abides on him."”
John is saying that there are only two kinds of people on planet earth,
those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and those who do
not. As the world grows increasingly
darker the ones that do not believe in Jesus Christ are going to be more and
more against those who do. In the past
we have seen that this separation of believers and those who are not do not
always fight against each other, but now it seems that all around the world
there is becoming less tolerance for those who name the name of Jesus Christ
and because of this believers need to learn what we have been writing about in
this section, knowing that one day the ‘ruler of this world’ will be put in the
lake of fire.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Being very thankful for the fact that my 97
year old father-in-law got through his surgery yesterday, and also for my three
year old grandson who is on the mend after breaking two bones in his arm. God is good.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Give Caesar what belongs to
him and give God what belongs to Him” (Matthew 22:15-22).”
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘Go and wash in the
Jordan River seven times’?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/11/2015 11:07 AM
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