SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/16/2015
9:32 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction
to Rev. 20:11-15
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
20:11-15
Message of the
verses: “11 Then I saw a great white throne and
Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no
place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the
things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And
the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead
which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their
deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the
lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book
of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
In his commentary on these verses John MacArthur entitles
this chapter “Man’s Last Day in God’s Court,” and this seems to me an appreciate
title, for once this chapter is complete then we will move on to the new
heavens and the new earth, along with the New Jerusalem and not mention what
happens here.
What we have in this section is the final sentencing of
the lost and what we are about to read and study is the most serious, sobering,
and tragic passage in the entire Bible.
People who have studied this passage call it the “Great White Throne
Judgment” for that is how the passage begins, and what we are looking at is the
very court room of God who is the ultimate Judge. To put it another way God is the Supreme
Court, and what He will say will go, unlike our supreme court who in the past
years has decided not just to interpret the law, but to make laws, and these
laws are against what is the will of God.
Now when this trial is over all of the lost people will be sentenced and
there will never again be a trial and God will never again need to act as
judge. John MacArthur writes “The
accused, all the unsaved who have ever lived, will be resurrected to experience
a trial like no other that has ever been.
There will be no debate over their guilt or innocence. There will be an indictment, but no defense
mounted by the accused; the convicting evidence will be presented with no
rebuttal or cross-examination. There
will be an utterly unsympathetic Judge and no jury, and there will be no appeal
of the sentence He pronounces. The
guilty will be punished eternally with no possibility of parole in a prison
form which there is no escape.” As I
read over what I have just quoted from John MacArthur it makes me think about
what I have been learning from the prophets, especially from the book of Amos
in my last Spiritual Diary from the sixth chapter of Amos as I learned that God
was upset to the point of punishing Israel and one of the reasons was because
of their unjust court system, something that we surely have in our country
today. If the courts would be run like
the Lord is going to run this Great White Throne Judgment then people would be
much better off and sin would not be so prevalent in our society today.
MacArthur goes on stating “The language of this passage
is plain, stark, and unembellished. Few
details are given, and the description is utterly lacking in the vivid,
eloquent modifiers that might be expected.
But the scene is frightening enough in its own right that such language
would be superfluous. The beloved
apostle John, recording this vision is a cave or on a hillside on the island of
Patmos, no doubt was shaken as he wrote of the eternal damnation of the wicked.” Thinking about how John just have felt as he
went through what he writes about and has seen over these almost twenty
chapters in the book of Revelation is something that we have not talked about
too much, and something that had to take its toll on John. In the book of Daniel where Daniel sees a lot
of things that we could say are a bit similar we read that when he was old just
like John was old when he penned Revelation, that Daniel actually became
physically ill after seeing the visions that he saw, so we can surely state
that both John and Daniel are owed a lot for the job that they have done so that
we today can read their books.
We have seen many things that Satan has done as we study
this book and one of the things that he tries to do is to deceive people into
thinking that there will not be a final judgment, but this passage is the truth
of what will happen. Satan told Eve a
long time ago that she would surely not die if she ate the fruit that God told
her not to eat, but as we know that she immediately died spiritually and later
on physically, and all those who have not or will not accept the salvation that
has been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ will not only die spiritually, and
physically, but will die eternally and be put in the lake of fire.
John MacArthur previews what we will be looking at by
writing “This simple, but powerful text describes the terrifying reality of the
final verdict and sentence on sinners under four headings: the scene, the summons, the standard, and the
sentence.” We will begin to look at the
scene in our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am thankful that the Lord Jesus Christ took
my place on the cross to pay for my sin so that I will never have to face what
this passage speaks of.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To tell others of what is about to happen so
that they too will not have to go through what this passage speaks of.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The Mosaic Covenant” (Exodus
20:1-17).
Today’s Bible
question: “How may one reap life
everlasting?”
Answer in our next SD.
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