SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/12/2015
7:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Characteristic
of Purpose
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
14:4c
Message
of the verses: “These have been
purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb.”
First I would like to go back to
Revelation 5:9 “And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take
the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue
and people and nation.” We can
see from this verse that John is again showing that the Lord Jesus Christ has
purchased men from among men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
which is similar to what we read in our verse today. Now according to this verse in Revelation
chapter five and other verses like Acts 20:28 which reads “"Be on guard
for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” We can also look at 1 Corinthians 6:20 “For
you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” Next 1 Corinthians 7:23 “You were bought with
a price; do not become slaves of men.”
Next 1 Peter 1:18-19 “18 knowing
that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your
futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb
unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
All of these verses show that God is the One who has purchased us
through the blood and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, but for these 144,000
God had purchased them for a special purpose.
Our verse for today states that they have been redeemed as “first fruits
to God and to the Lamb.” We will have to
go back to the Old Testament to understand what the term “first fruits”
means. I will give a couple of
references here to show what this means, the first from Deuteronomy 26:1-11,
but we will not write this one out but will look at Deuteronomy 18:3-5 “3 “Now
this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those who offer a
sacrifice, either an ox or a sheep, of which they shall give to the priest the
shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. 4 “You shall give him the first fruits of your grain, your
new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep. 5 “For the
LORD your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes, to stand and
serve in the name of the LORD forever.”
Now in Deuteronomy 26:1-11 we can see that this passage speaks of the
first part of a crop to be harvested were offered to God. Now what does this have to do with the
144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14? John
MacArthur writes “As previously noted, the number 144,000 does not symbolize
all the Tribulation saints, but rather designates a group of Jewish
evangelists. The purpose of their lives
will be to serve the Lord by proclaiming the gospel to the lost, perishing,
Christ rejecting world.
“It is also possible to view the
144,000 as ‘first fruits’ in the sense that they represent the first of many
others who will be saved. Paul used the
term in that sense when he noted that ‘the household of Stephanas …were the
first fruits of Achaia.’ The 144,000 may
legitimately be viewed as the first fruits of redeemed Israel, foreshadowing
the nation’s salvation when Christ returns.
In that day ‘they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will
mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over
Him like the bitter weeping over a first born’ (Zech. 12:10). Of that day Paul wrote ‘25 For I do not want
you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery-so that you will not be wise in your own
estimation-that a partial
hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
26 and so all Israel will
be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM
ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB." 27 “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH
THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS."”
I want to go back to Revelation 5:9
and look at the phrase “from
every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” What we don’t see in this phrase is the word “race”
for all of what John speaks of here is from the same race, the human race, but
he does talk about different tribes and tongues and people, and nations, which
are all a part of the human race. I have
spoken about this in earlier SD’s and so this is not new, but this is a great
problem in our world today and it comes from the false religion of evolution. This is just another bad thing that comes out
of evolution that is we have different races of people when in fact there is
only one race and that is the race of man that God created on the sixth
day. Also as I earlier stated that one
of the other problems of the religion of evolution is that since we are all one
big accident that there is no one we are accountable to, but this is wrong for
all men are accountable to God.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am
thankful for the things that I am learning from the lives of the 144,000
mentioned in these two chapters of Revelation, happy that I can learn from
their lives, and even happy that since I believe that we are close to the
return of Jesus Christ to come to take His bride that I even pray for these men
from time to time that God will do just as He tells us He will do with them
during the Tribulation Period.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the
Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, and to be thankful for the
love that the Lord has for me.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Solomon”
(Luke 12:27).
Today’s
Bible question: “Which Psalm begins, ‘Make
a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands’?”
Answer
in our next SD.
7/12/2015
7:45 AM
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