SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/30/2015
8:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 The
Return of the Conqueror
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
19:11-13
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.”
The first thing that I want to do for this SD is to quote
from my SD that I did on November 7, 2005 on these same verses: “In the first part of verse eleven John saw
heaven opened and then he saw a white horse, and the one who sat on this white
horse is described as Faithful and True.
In chapter six John introduced his readers to another person on a white
horse, and it was discovered that he was the Antichrist, and he proved to be
unfaithful, and also not truthful. Jesus
Christ is Faithful and True and John goes on to say that He judges in
righteousness, and also He will wage war.
Christ is coming back to earth to wage war against His enemies who
consist of Antichrist, the False Prophet, and all of their followers. He is also coming to wage war against Satan
and will conquer Satan and put him into the lake of fire as will be seen latter
on in this letter.
“John
goes with his description of Jesus Christ in verse twelve, where he writes that
His eyes are a flame of fire, and His head has many crowns upon it. The eyes that look like flames of fire have
to do with judgment, and the crowns upon His head show Christ is the Ruler. John goes on to say that He also has a name
on His head that no one knows except Himself.
John could see this name, but could not understand what it was or what
it meant.
“Verse
thirteen describes Christ robe that had been dipped in blood, and also John
gives another name for Jesus the Word of God.
This is a name that only John has used for Christ. Jesus Christ is the One who, as the second
person of the godhead, explains the Father to His followers, just as words in a
letter describe what the letter is about so Jesus Christ describes who and what
God is all about. As far as the robe and
the blood on it, this describes some of the battles that Christ has gone
through in judgment, and it also could be referring to the battle of Armageddon
which He will shortly go through. At any
rate this is not His blood, but the blood of His enemies.”
As
I was listening to John MacArthur’s sermon on these verses he came up with some
statistics that I want to pass on in this SD.
Things like this are something that I enjoy listening to and hopefully
all who read this will like them too.
“Here is the great presentation of the vision of the Second Coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now to show you how important this is on the pages of
Scripture, a total of one thousand five hundred and twenty-seven Old Testament
passages alone refer to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are
approximately eight thousand verses in the New Testament and three hundred and
thirty of those or about one out of every twenty-five verses directly refers to
the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In fact, next to the subject of faith, no
subject is more often mentioned than the return of Christ. For every time the
first coming of Christ is mentioned, the Second Coming is mentioned eight times.
And the Lord Himself refers to His coming twenty-one times and over 50 times we
are exhorted to be ready for that great event. It is a major theme throughout
the pages of Scripture. Clearly because of so much biblical testimony, we can
be certain that Jesus will come again.”
Now we mentioned the difference of when Christ came the first time and
when He comes this time and one of the differences is that this time John
writes that He is riding on a white horse while the first time we see when
Christ offered Himself to be Israel’s King he rode on a donkey. During the Roman times when they had a great
victory their generals would ride on white horses in their triumphal
processions through the streets of Rome.
John MacArthur writes “White also symbolizes the spotless, unblemished,
absolutely holy character of the Rider.
The horse, like the crowns (v. 12), the sharp sword (v. 15), the rod of
iron (v. 15), and the wine press (v. 15) is symbolic; Christ’s coming is
reality. They symbolic language
represents various aspects of that reality—Christ’s victory over His enemies,
His sovereign rule, and His judgment of sinners.” I have to say that although I believe what is
stated here by John MacArthur I was a bit disappointed to find out that when
the raptured believers return to planet earth with Christ that we will not be
riding on white horses. MacArthur states
in his sermon that there are no glorified horses in heaven.
Next we look at the phrase that states that Jesus, who rides on this
horse “is Faithful and True.” This name
for our Savior is most appropriate for Him and we see the same thing in
Revelations 3:14 “"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen,
the faithful and true
Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this.” Jesus is faithful to His promises “20 For as
many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through
Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us (2 Cor. 1:20).” Let’s look at what Jesus stated in John
8:45-46 “45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 "Which
one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?” Titus 1:2 states “in the hope of eternal
life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,” “Faithful and True is a marked contrast with
the unfaithfulness and lies of Satan (12:9), Antichrist’s evil empire (18:23),
and wicked people (2 Tim. 3:13). The
very fact that He is coming again as He promised confirms that Jesus is
Faithful and True” writes John MacArthur.
We next learn that Jesus “in righteousness He judges.” I have mentioned many times about things that
I learned studying the attributes of God and one of His attributes is that He
is just and that can be seen here as the judgment that Christ will give is
righteous. Some have a hard time with
this but what we see here is true for God has to judge sin, and that judgment
was taken out on the cross for those who have accepted His forgiveness, but for
those who have not that judgment will be taken out on them. Jesus came the first time to care for the
salvation of those who would believe in Him and now He comes for the second
time to care for those who have rejected Him and that will be in judgment. John MacArthur writes “He is the executioner
of all ungodly, unbelieving sinners. The
only other reference in Scripture to Jesus waging war is in 2:16, when He
warned the worldly church at Pergamum, ‘Repent; or else I am coming to you
quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth. ‘This is
not out of keeping with God’s character, however. After their deliverance from the Egyptian
forces at the Red Sea, Israel sang ‘The Lord is a warrior’ (Ex. 15:3; cf. Pss.
24:8; 4 5:3-5). John Phillips writes ‘The
Lord is a man of war! It is an amazing
title for the Son of God. Says Alexander
White, commenting on Bunyan’s Holy War,
‘Holy Scripture is full of wars and rumours of wars; the wars of the Lord; the
wars of Joshua and the Judges; the wars of David, with his and many other magnificent
battle-songs; till the best known name of the God of Israel in the Old
Testament is the Lord of Hosts; and then in the New Testament we have Jesus
Christ described as the Captain of our Salvation…And then the whole Bible is
crowned with a book all sounding with battle-cries…till it ends with that city
of peace where they hang the trumpet in the hall and study war no more.’
‘The Lord is a man of war! In righteousness He judges and makes
war. The judging has been going on
throughout the breaking of the seals, the blowing of the trumpets, and the
pouring out of the bowls. Now He makes
war. He, who for long centuries has
endured patiently the scoffing, the insults, the bad manners of men; who for
ages has contemplated Calvary and all that is displayed of human hatred and
contempt; and who, through the millennia has made peace through the blood of
the cross, now makes war over that blood. (Exploring
Revelation, rev. ed. [Chicago: Moody, 1987; reprint, Neptune, N. J.
Loizeaux, 1991] 232).”
We conclude this SD by stating that as we have gone
through our study of the book of Revelation we have seen in different cases
after judgment had been carried out by one of the judgments from the seals, the
trumpets, or the bowls that people would not repent, but they would blaspheme
the Lord for the judgments that were going on.
I remember only one time when the judgments caused people to repent and
that was the earthquake in the city of Jerusalem where I believe it was the
Jews that finally figured that all of this was from God and that Jesus is
indeed their Messiah and perhaps at this moment Paul’s words from Romans 11:26
come true that “all Israel will be saved.”
At any rate what we see when Jesus returns is hardened sinners who have
had much time to repent, but they refuse and so the Lord will judge them.
We begin our next SD by looking at the phrase “His eyes
are a flame of fire.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful for
the judgment that God took out on Jesus Christ on the cross so that I do not
have to be a part of the judgment that is written about in the book of
Revelation.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to continue to get the Word out to
those that the Lord brings into my path.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Barak” (Judges 4:5-8).
Today’s Bible
question: “In which book is the word ‘Selah”
often found?”
Answer in our next SD.
9/30/2015 9:26 AM
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