SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/16/2015
6:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 of the 7th Bowl Judgment
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
16:17-21
Message
of the verses: “17 Then the seventh
angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple
from the throne, saying, "It is done." 18 And there were flashes of
lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake,
such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an
earthquake was it, and so mighty. 19 The great city was split into three parts,
and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before
God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath. 20 And every island
fled away, and the mountains were not found. 21 And huge hailstones, about one
hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God
because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe.”
Now we finished looking at the
greatest earthquake that will ever happen on planet earth in our earlier SD’s
on this seventh bowl judgment and for those who escape what happens during the
earthquake, they will face more terror in the form of 100 pound
hailstones. Let us go back and look at a
couple of places where God used hail stones in judgments, but these will be
nothing like the ones seen in this passage.
“Egypt." 23 Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the
LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained
hail on the land of Egypt. 24 So there was hail, and fire flashing continually
in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of
Egypt since it became a nation (Ex. 9:23-24).”
“The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and
they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a
third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up (Rev.
8:7).” We can see from the first trumpet
judgment that things were worse than the first seal judgments but not as bad as
what takes place in the bowl judgments.
John MacArthur writes “The Greek term translated ‘about one hundred
pounds’ described the most weight a normal man could carry, anywhere from
90-135 pounds. The heaviest hailstones
ever recorded weighed about 2 points; these gigantic chunks of ice will be
fifty times heavier. They will add to
the devastation caused by the earthquake and crush humanity, who, because of
the earthquake’s power, have no adequate shelter.”
Once again we see unsaved mankind
blaspheming God because of the hailstones for this plague was extremely
severe. If one thinks that these signs
from God convince people to come to the Lord then as we see here they would be
mistaken. “"But he said to him, ’If
they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if
someone rises from the dead’ (Luke 16:31).”
This verse is a part of the story of Lazarus and the rich man who is
pleading with Abraham to send someone to his brothers who has risen from the
dead, and Abraham tells the formerly rich man that if they did not listen to
the Law and the prophets they will not listen to someone who has risen from the
dead. The people who are affected by
these last judgments have not listened to One who has risen from the dead or
else they would not be in the predicament that they are in now.
We will finish this SD, and this
section that speaks of this final bowl judgment with a quote from John
MacArthur. “God’s eschatological and
eternal wrath is inevitable; no one can prevent or hinder it from coming (Isa.
43:13). But there is a way to escape it,
because ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom.
8:1). Those who by faith trust in Christ
alone for salvation will escape both God’s eschatological wrath (3:10) and His
eternal wrath (1 Thess. 1:10). They will
not face judgment, because their sins were judged when Jesus died in their
place on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24).
In light of the inevitable judgment to come, the warning to all unrepentant
sinners is ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts’ (Heb. 4:7).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God is what will happen to
those who harden their hearts towards the Living God. We can see what happened to Pharaoh that
after a while God hardened his heart, and the same thing happened to those in
our study of these last judgments that come from God. I want others to understand the consequences
of not trusting Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I mentioned
that I have some goals for these Spiritual Diaries that I write each day and
put as many as three blog posts a day onto the two different blogs that I write. The first goal is for salvation as mentioned
in our last SD. The second goal comes
from 2 Peter 3:18 “but grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him
be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” This is the last verse that we have from
Peter as shortly after he wrote this he was crucified upsides down for the
cause of Christ. The last goal is that
those who are believers, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and
Lord and are growing in grace will also be revived in their hearts from the
Holy Spirit, so that they will tell others of how they have been born again. I pray that God will accomplish these three
goals everyday when I look at who it is that have read these Spiritual
Diaries. To God be the Glory, Great
things He has done.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Enoch”
(Genesis 5:21).
Today’s
Bible question: In Jewish money, one
maneh equaled how many shekels?”
Answer
in our next SD.
8/16/2015
7:18 AM
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