SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/24/2015
10:43 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: Introduction
to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
19:11-21
Message of the
verses: “11 And I saw heaven opened,
and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire,
and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one
knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His
name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed
in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His
mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and
He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the
fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a
name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." 17 Then I saw an
angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all
the birds which fly in midheaven, "Come, assemble for the great supper of
God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and
the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them
and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great." 19
And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to
make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 And the
beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his
presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and
those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of
fire which burns with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword
which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were
filled with their flesh.”
The question that I have as we begin this SD is whether
or not you think the world is getting better and will man be able to cause
things to get better on planet earth?
Perhaps this is sort of a trick question for we who read and study the
Bible, especially the end times know that things will continually get worse,
and then the Lord Jesus Christ will return to planet earth and stop all of the
fighting, put Satan and his cohorts in the lake of fire, and then rule from
Jerusalem for the next 1000 years and things will be peaceful for that time
period.
I am so thankful for the book of Revelation as it ties us
some of the things that have been predicted in both the Old and New Testaments
and makes sense of what is going to happen.
Israel was to receive a kingdom with their Messiah ruling it as this was
promised in the Old Testament and we see not only that this will happen from
the pages of Revelation, but also how long the duration of this kingdom will be
as six times we read that it will last 1000 years. In the Old Testament we see predicted that
the Messiah will come in both humility and also power but we did not realize
from reading that that Jesus Christ, the Messiah would come to earth two
different times but Revelation clears this up too. When we began looking at this book I know
that I looked forward to this section of the book and now we are here. I said that I would probably give you an excerpt
from John MacArthur’s sermon on the introduction to this greatest event and so
we will do that now.
“So often I am asked the question, I
guess people know that I'm a preacher, a pastor, one who studies Scripture and
teaches the Bible and they often will say to me, "Will things in our
troubled world ever get any better? Is it just going to continue to get worse
and worse or will there be an end to all the war, to the hostility and the
inequity and the crime and the chaos?" And I always answer the question by
saying...It's going to get better, it's going to be better, there's no question
about it. I can give a resounding yes to...will the world get better? But that
yes is directly associated with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. That and
that alone is what is going to remedy the problems of our world. That and that
alone is what is going to bring peace instead of war, justice instead of
inequity, righteousness instead of wickedness. Jesus Christ will come and He
will rule this world some day. He will return to be the King and to establish
His kingdom. This particular passage, which we just read, prophesies that
greatest of all moments in human history and in the saga of redemption.
“As we have learned in our study of this incredible book of Revelation,
such a glorious event will not happen without preliminary hostility of a very
vast and far-reaching nature. Prior to the return of Jesus Christ there will be
worldwide hostility generated by Satan and demons and wicked men, as well as worldwide
hostilities generated by God Himself as He pours out His wrath. We have learned
about the efforts of Satan during the coming time of Tribulation. We have
learned about the identity of Antichrist and the cohort that he has called the
false prophet. We have learned about the demons that will be released to
overrun the earth. We have learned about the escalating wickedness of men in
the midst of the outpouring of the fury and the wrath of God, they continue to
become more and more wicked, more and more obstinate, harder and harder and
more resistant against the gospel which at the same time is being preached to
them like never before. We have learned about how Satan with all of his hosts
comes to fight against the purposes of God and the people of God and the plan
of God, the angels of God and even the Christ of God Himself. The forces of
heaven and the forces of hell will meet in final fury, involving the nations of
the world in a battle that we know as Armageddon, as the darkness endeavors to
stop the King of light from establishing His glorious Kingdom on the earth.
“We also remember from the sixteenth chapter of the book of Revelation
and verse 16 that the great focal point of that battle will be in a place
called in the Hebrew language Armageddon. So it is not without a tremendous
among of hostility, far beyond what we have seen yet in our world, so when we are
asked the question...are things going to get better? The answer is absolutely,
assuredly they will get better and they will get better in an instantaneous
fashion at the coming of Jesus Christ in one great cataclysmic moment of
redemptive history. But before they get better, they're going to get worse...a
lot worse. The world hasn't even begun to understand how bad life can be. How
terrifyingly inequitable it can be. How unjust it can be. How criminal it can
be. How chaotic it can be. How devastating and deadly it can be. If you want to
understand that, understand the book of Revelation. Starting in chapter 6 the
unfolding of seven seal judgments and seven trumpet judgments and seven bowls
of the wrath of God culminating in that which is called the day of wrath itself
describe for us how bad it is going to become. Before the world gets any better
in the return of Jesus Christ, it's going to get far worse than it is today.
And sometimes we ask ourselves if it can get any worse. And the answer is, it
can and it will. And then in a great moment of redemptive culmination, Jesus
will come and the world will immediately become a paradise regained.
“Now as we come to Revelation chapter 19 and verse 11, where the return
of Jesus Christ is described for us, we want to remember the prior passage. It
has been a number of weeks since we studied the book of Revelation and I won't
want you to lose the train of thought here. You will remember that in the prior
passage there was some presentation of the great event called in verse 9 the
Marriage Supper of the Lamb, a time when the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, will join together with His redeemed people and they will participate
in this wonderful marriage supper that in its fullness will be enjoyed in the
time of the millennial kingdom, the thousand-year reign as Jesus establishes on
the earth as the first phase of His eternal rule. But the Marriage Supper of
the Lamb, as wonderful as it is, when the Lamb gathers His bride and they enter
into the glory of the kingdom and participate in that wonderful time of
celebration, before that marriage supper can come to pass, the warrior King
must win the final battle.
“He cannot take His bride into the kingdom, He cannot establish that
great event of the marriage supper, that great and permanent celebration. He
cannot enter into that promised marriage and that promised culmination until He
returns from victory in the greatest battlefield of all time. And so in anticipation
of the great event of the Marriage Supper, the great event of the kingdom, the
warrior King goes to battle one final time. And it is at this time that the
greatest...the greatest amassing of enemies comes against the Lord Jesus
Christ. For now you have demons who have been loosed, and you have demons that
have been bound and now are loosed. You have two hundred million demons who
have been released, who have been held captive for a long period of time. You
have the pit of hell opened up and demons belching out of that who have been
incarcerated in chains until the hour of the time of Tribulation. So the hosts
of hell are more formidable now than they have been.
“You have what is left of the humanity of the earth, that which hasn't
been destroyed under the power of Antichrist or destroyed by the furious
judgments of God. And they gather together in great armies and are led into the
fields of Megiddo, as it were, and stretching all the way there into the south
past the city of Jerusalem, they become really fuel for the fires of the
returning King. This greatest of all human holocausts is commonly known, and
rightfully so, as the great holocaust of Armageddon. And before the King can
take His bride to her supper in celebration, He has to make a final triumph.
The daring challenge of the Antichrist is accepted by heaven itself, it is
accepted by the King, the warrior King and His holy angels. And He comes in
flaming fire to take His vengeance. As we come to this event in chapter 19 and
verse 11, Babylon the great capital city of the empire of Antichrist has
already been destroyed. The world economic and religious system has been devastated.
The empire of the Antichrist is in shambles as we remember from chapters 17 and
18.
“The seven-seal judgments have been opened and fulfilled. The seven
trumpets have been blown and their furious judgments unfolded. The seven bowls
of wrath have been poured out. And after all of that divine wrath, the
remaining people of the earth are gathered into armies and assembled for the last
holocaust. Man's day is about to end. The Great Tribulation to be over. Satan's
time as well has ended as Jesus Christ comes in glorious triumph.
“It wouldn't do justice to the intent of Scripture and to the
anticipation of all of the redemptive literature that is before in the Bible if
we didn't say at this point...this is the culmination of God's plan that His people
have been waiting for throughout all of redemptive history. This is that which
has been anticipated since the very beginning. This is the time when fully the
serpent's head is bruised. And that takes us back to Genesis chapter 3 and
verse 15. This is the time when the scepter is given to the true King and that
takes us back to Genesis chapter 49. This is the time, also, for example, that was
anticipated in the great prophecy given in 2 Samuel chapter 7, in that great
chapter in which David is told that there is going to come a King, there is
going to come a King greater than any other King, and that King who will be a
son of David will establish a kingdom that will last forever. It will be a kingdom
that will never end.
“Second Samuel 7 then is anticipating the very event described for us
here in Revelation
chapter 19. It is the very anticipation of this day and this moment that was
certainly in the heart of Isaiah when he talked about the fact that there was
going to come a great servant King, a great One who would establish a throne
and a kingdom. Isaiah anticipates that in the eleventh chapter and again in the
forty- second
chapter. This was anticipated by Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39. It was
anticipated by Joel in chapter 3 of his prophecy. And by Zechariah in chapter
14. And certainly Isaiah had it in mind in chapter 9 when he said, "The
government will be upon His shoulders." He talked about a child who would
come, who would reign and rule. The Old Testament also pointed out very clearly
that the center of this kingdom which the Messiah would establish would be in the
city of Jerusalem. Clearly the prophet Zechariah let it be known that Jerusalem
was to be the place. In Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 3, "It shall come
about in that day I'll make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples, all
who lift it will be severely injured and all the nations of the earth will be
gathered against it." In the battle of Armageddon there is a focal point
as well at Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is going to be a place, of course, where
Antichrist establishes his rule.
“After desecrating the temple, you'll remember, during the Tribulation,
he sets up himself as the one to be worshiped. He sets up the center of his
worship in that sense in the city of Jerusalem. And so the conflict will hit
that city as well. Zechariah talked about it even Isaiah talks about it in
chapter 9 verse 7.
“So the prophets were anticipating what was going to happen, that there
would come a day when Jerusalem would be a place of judgment. There would come
a day when God would send His great King to establish His eternal kingdom. And
though they didn't fully have the revelation, of course, they had to wait until
the New Testament even gave a greater revelation, that which came in the Olivet
Discourse, that which comes in the book of Revelation. They understood how human
history would finely reach its culmination. There would come One from heaven,
the Anointed, the Son of David, the promised King who would dethrone the kings
of the world and establish a kingdom of righteousness in which the people of
God would be lifted up and exalted. Peace and justice would prevail in the world.
Certainly Isaiah as well as the other prophets knew and understood as much as
they were told about this great event.
“So the conflict is set. We understand it. We've learned about it from
the book of Revelation. But so is the anticipation set. And Christians have
longed for this great day to come. And now we are reading about its coming.”
We will continue to look at the introduction to this event in our next
SD.
Answer to yesterday’s
Bible question: “33 years” (2 Samuel
5:5).
Today’s Bible
question: “Instead of themselves, of
whom did the apostles preach?
Answer in our next
SD.
9/24/2015 11:23 AM
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