SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2015
8:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Introduction to Rev. 18
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
18
Message of the
verses: In our last series of
Spiritual Diaries we have been focused in on “Religious Babylon,” which is what
Revelation chapter seventeen is all about, but now in the next series of
Spiritual Diaries we will focus in on ecumenical Babylon, a side of Babylon
that has also been around for many thousands of years and will come to its
climax in this chapter of Revelation.
Just as the religious Babylon began in Babel so the ecumenical Babylon
began there also as man wanted to conquer the world in a God-rejecting society
that has been seen throughout the ages by men and nations, some of whom we have
seen in our own life time or just before our life time. Some have been crying for “world peace” when
all they wanted to do was to conquer the world.
One of my favorite things in this world to dislike is the
theory of evolution and in the pages of my Spiritual Diaries I have stated why
I have such a dislike for it, the main reason is that people who fall into this
religious trap, and yes it is a religion can say in their hearts that there is
no God, for all we see around us is a great big accident which had no
creator. People can build buildings,
watches, computers, and any other thing they want to build and they all have to
have a design, and designs have to have a designer. So it is true with the world and the
universe, and the Bible shows us that God is that designer, but because of sin
people don’t see things the way that they should, and this is what happened in
Babel which was later named Babylon as the false religion that started there is
still around today, so that false idea of doing things without God is still
around today. John MacArthur writes “Having
taken control (se they think) of their own destiny through science, sinners
have no use for God and haughtily replace Him as self-styled gods devoted to their
own sovereignty.
“But God cannot be so easily replaced, nor His plans
thwarted by the whims of sinful men (Isa. 43:13; 46:10). In fact, in a profound, if brief, statement
in Acts 14:16, Scripture says that God ‘permitted all the nations to go their
own ways.’ In Psalm 2:2-4 the psalmist
recorded God’s reaction to man’s impotent fury against Him: ‘The kings of the earth take their stand and
the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed,
saying ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’ He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord
scoffs at them.’ Compared to the
glorious, indescribable majesty of the omnipotent God, all of man’s vaunted
empires are a mere ‘drop from a bucket’ (Isa. 40:15), so insignificant that
they ‘are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing
and meaningless’ (Isa. 40:17). The
inescapable reality is that God, not man, will have the last word in human
history, and that word will be a word of judgment.” Now as we begin to unfold what we see in this
18th chapter of Revelation we will see that just as God judged the
great harlot, as we learned that He actually used Antichrist to do this, that He
will also judge this last empire which is headed up by Antichrist and as we
will learn in chapter 19 of Revelation that when the Lord comes back to planet
earth He will very quickly judge those who have come out to fight against Him,
and it was even in His plan, as we have learned to have these nations come to
Armageddon for that exact reason, to fight against the Lord so that He can
quickly destroy them with the Sword of His mouth. But before that happens we will look at the
contents of chapter 18 to see how Babylon the great city will be destroyed as alluded
to in chapter sixteen.
From the beginning of God’s Word to the end of His Word
God has warned that judgment was coming on sinful man and as we begin to get
closer to the third part of the outline that the Lord Jesus gave us in 1:19 we
will see how this outcome of judgment will take place. I still go back to the little book that John
had to eat which was sweet in his mouth, but made his stomach bitter, and it
also pains my heart to tell all about these judgments that are soon to take
place on planet earth and realize that there are so many people who fall into
the category of rejecting God, of believing that the world was just some kind
of cosmic accident so that they can live their lives the way that they want to
without the fear of God and His coming judgment, and I want to cry out to them
and tell them the truth, the truth that is found in the pages of God’s Word of
how a person can be made right with God. The truth of God becoming a man in the Person
of Jesus Christ, who came to earth over 2000 years ago in order to pay the
price of sin, a price that pleased the Father so much that when it was done He
raised Him from the dead and brought Him back to heaven to seat Him at His
right hand in glorious victory. Telling
this story brings sweetness to my mouth, telling the story of judgment that
will soon take place on planet earth brings bitterness to my stomach. We will continue to look at more of the
introduction to Revelation 18 in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Paul” Romans 1:16).
Today’s Bible
question: “In Daniel’s vision of the ram
and the goat, where was Daniel?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/28/2015 8:51 AM
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