SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/17/2015
10:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 of The First Angel: Preaching the
Gospel
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation 14:6-7
Message of the
verses: “6 And I saw another angel
flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to
every nation and tribe and tongue and people; 7
and he said with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give Him glory,
because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of
waters."”
As we continue our look at the angel who will be
preaching the gospel during the Tribulation period we see the phrase “to those
who live on the earth,” and this is not an unfamiliar phrase as we have looked
at it in the past noting that it speaks of unbelievers, unbelievers who live on
the earth, as these are the ones that the angel is giving the message to. I remember listening to a tape a very long
time ago from Hal Lindsey on this section of Scripture and he said in that
message that because believers have fumbled the ball so much in giving out the
gospel that now the angels are involved in it.
As I think back on that I am not so sure that I agree with that
statement, although I believe that all believers could do a better job in
giving out the gospel. We next look at
the phrase of who the angel is speaking to “every nation and tribe and tongue
and people,” and I went over this a bit in our introduction to this section,
but we can believe that every person on the earth will hear the gospel. With this said I want to go to a verse from
the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew chapter twenty-four where Jesus is
speaking of what will happen during the end times, the Tribulation period is
what He is telling His disciples about.
He says in Mt 24:14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the
whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” I believe that the fulfillment of this verse
will happen during the Tribulation period, and we know that it very well could
be fulfilled with the angel flying in mid-heaven giving out the good news of
the gospel. How long this will go is
something we do not really know, but I believe it will go on for an extended
period of time so that all people who live on the earth will hear the message
of the gospel. Many people have looked
at the verse in Matthew 24:14 saying that we as believers have to get the news
out to all people and in all languages so that this will cause the Lord to
return. I agree that as believers we are
to make every effort to get the gospel out to all peoples in all languages, but
I also believe that this verse will be totally fulfilled during the Tribulation
period.
We see that the angel is speaking in a loud voice and we
have spoken about loud things that will happen during the Tribulation period in
an earlier SD, and this is one we can add to the list of loud things happening
during the Tribulation period. Now for
all peoples, nations, and languages to hear the gospel by this angel we have to
believe that they will all hear it in their own language, and I will leave that
up the Lord to figure that one out, but it has to happen that way.
Next we look at the angel’s message to the sinners which
is “Fear God and give Him glory.” Now
let us look at a verse from Romans chapter one, a section that describes the
downward spiral of man and one of the things that causes this downward spiral
is “and exchanged the glory
of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of
birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” We see here that those Paul is speaking of in
this section of Romans exchanged the glory of God for idols, which is what is
being written about here. God is a
jealous God and He wants and deserves all glory to be given to Him. Being jealous is not like a person being
jealous as we have spoken of in an earlier SD, but God deservers all glory be
given to Him for who He is as this is one of God’s attributes. I suggest that if anyone has a problem
understand this that they look up a book by Richard L. Strauss entitled “The
Joy of Knowing God” and in this book he goes over many of the attributes of God
in a very understandable way.
The angel is saying to the unbelievers that they are to
fear God and not fear the Antichrist or Satan but fear the Lord as God is the
only One who deserves our worship. I did
a quick look in my online Bible on “Fear God,” Fear the Lord,” and “The fear of
the Lord” and found over seventy times it was found in the Bible, so we must
understand that as believers we are to fear the Lord.
Next we see that in addition to the fear of the Lord men
are to give glory to the Lord which is something we have already gone over so
no need to repeat it.
John MacArthur writes “Unbelievers will be called to fear
and glorify God immediately ‘because the hour of His judgment has come.’ Opportunity is fading fast; the bowl
judgments are about to be poured out, to be followed shortly by the return of
the Lord Jesus Christ to judge the unbelieving world (Matt. 25:31-46). This is the first occurrence of the word krisis (judgment) in Revelation. It will appear again in 16:7, 18:10, and
19:2. (A Greek synonym for krisis, krima,
appears in 17:1, 18:20, and 20:4.) Up to
this point in Revelation, the word wrath
has been used to describe God’s interchangeably (cf. 6:16-17; 11:18); the two
terms will continue to be used interchangeably (cf. vv. 10, 19, 15:1, 7; 16:1,
19; 19:15). God’s righteous judgments
are the outpouring of His wrath against the stubborn and unrepentant world.”
When the angel gives the message we have learned that
many terrible judgments from the Lord have come upon the earth, and I want to
remind you that this is all done because of the great sinfulness of mankind and
also because God is in the process during the Tribulation period to take back
control of planet earth so that His Son can come back to reign on Planet earth
heading up His kingdom that has been promised to the nation of Israel many
thousands of years ago. People have to
realize at this point in time that the things that are going on have to be from
the Lord, and yet many millions will refuse to fear God and give Him glory, so
as we see the angel giving out the gospel we see an element of the grace of God
being given to those who dwell on the earth one more time.
Anyone who has read any of my Spiritual Diaries
knows that I have a passion to let others know that it is God who created the
heavens and the earth, and it was not done through evolution, for evolution is
a false religion that has caused much harm with its false message. Let’s look at Psalm 19:1-4 “1 The heavens are
telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day
pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech,
nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line has gone out
through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world.” The following is a quote from Jan. 16, 2012
from my SD on Psalm 19: “Warren Wiersbe
writes the following in his introduction to this psalm: “The emphasis in the Psalm is on God’s revelations of Himself
in creation, Scripture, and the human heart.”
Next we want to look at Isaiah 40:21-26, as we
remember that beginning with chapter 40 that there is a great division from the
fist 39 chapters of this book. “21 Do
you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the
beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is
He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like
grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out
like a tent to dwell in. 23 He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes
the judges of the earth meaningless. 24 Scarcely have they been planted,
Scarcely have they been sown, Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
But He merely blows on them, and they wither, And the storm carries them away
like stubble. 25 “To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his
equal?" says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high And see who has
created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls
them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His
power, Not one of them is missing.”
We have already looked at Romans chapter one earlier
but I want to quote from there again in verses 18-20 which says “18 For the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known
about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible
attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being
understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
John MacArthur concludes: “The angel’s stern warning is that the
Creator is also the Judge; He is the on people should fear and worship, rather
than Satan and Antichrist. As the world
teeters on the brink of final disaster, God graciously offers people another
chance to repent. He will snatch those
who heed the warning from the fire of judgment (cf. Jude 23), and transfer them
from Satan’s kingdom of darkness into the soon to be manifest kingdom of His
Son (Col. 1:13).” Jude 23 “save others, snatching them out of the fire;
and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the
flesh.” Colossians 1:13 “For He rescued
us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His
beloved Son.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJFdKwfE-Xg
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the
Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Saul” (1
Samuel 17:33).
Today’s
Bible question: “Where was John when he
received the Revelation?”
Answer
in our next SD.
7/17/2015
11:38 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment