SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/4/2015
9:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 of
Judgment Avoided
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
18:4-5
Message of the
verses: “4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying,
"Come out of her, my
people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her
plagues; 5 for her sins have piled up as
high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.’”
I want to begin with looking at some OT parallels in this
statement to flee from Babylon. Isaiah
48:20 “Go forth from
Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful
shouting, proclaim this, Send it out to the end of the earth; Say, "The
LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob.’”
Jeremiah 50:8; 51:6 “"Wander away from the midst of Babylon And go
forth from the land of the Chaldeans; Be also like male goats at the head of
the flock.” “6 Flee from the midst of
Babylon, And each of you save his life! Do not be destroyed in her punishment,
For this is the LORD’S time of vengeance; He is going to render recompense to
her.”
One of the verses that I mentioned in our last SD is one
that goes along with believer’s lives today and has a similar meaning to flee
from the world’s system which is, as I mentioned what this economic Babylon
represents “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that
which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2). Another set of verses comes from 2 Cor.
6:14-17 which I mentioned two days ago, but bears repeating: “14 Do
not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness
and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony
has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 16
Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of
the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG
THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. 17 “Therefore, COME
OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT
TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.”
James also writes in James 1:27 “Pure and undefiled religion in the
sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their
distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Also in James 4:4 “You adulteresses, do you
not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore
whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” And we dare not forget what John wrote in 1
John 2:15 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
There is a parallel in the OT book of Genesis that
another angel gives to Lot and his family to flee from Sodom “12 Then the two
men said to Lot, "Whom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons,
and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the
place; 13 for we are about
to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the LORD that the LORD
has sent us to destroy it.’”
MacArthur writes “Believers are to flee Babylon so that
they ‘will not participate in her sins.’
The materialistic, pleasure-mad, demon-infested city of Babylon will
exert an almost irresistible influence on believers to ‘participate in her
sins.’ Like Joseph (Gen. 39:7-12; cf. 1
Cor. 10:14; 1 Tim 6:11; 2Tim. 2:22) they must flee to avoid succumbing to ‘the
lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life’ (1
John 2:16).”
We can see that this urgent request to flee Babylon in
Revelation 18 has a great meaning for all of us today as we also live in a
similar type of environment.
MacArthur concludes “Finally, believers must flee Babylon
‘because her sins have piled up as high as heaven’ (Cf. Jer. 51:9). ‘Piled’ is
from kollao, which literally means ‘to
glue together,’ or ‘to join.’ Babylon’s
sins will pile up like a new Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:3-4), but unlike the
ancient tower, her sins will reach ‘as high as heaven.’ Then the angel adds that ‘God has remembered
her iniquities (cf. 16:19). He will take
note of them as He did that earlier monument to man’s sinful, arrogant,
prideful rebellion at Babel. The blessed
truth is that God says of believers, ‘I will not remember your sins…I will
forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’ (Isa. 43:25;
Jer. 31:34). But for defiant,
unrepentant Babylon there will be no forgiveness, only punishment.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: 1 John 2:15-16.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “At Jesus’ Baptism” (Luke
2:22).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘Therefore I
retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.’”
Answer in our next SD.
9/4/2015 9:52 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment