SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/7/2015
1:06 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2
Introduction to Rev. 20
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Revelation
20
Message of the
verses: I realize that by posting
all of the verses that I did yesterday made for a very long Spiritual Diary,
but it is important to understand that the Lord has promised His Kingdom to be
on earth, as even in what we call the Lord’s Prayer we read about Thy Kingdom
come.
John MacArthur writes “God’s kingdom may be broadly
defined as the sphere in which He reigns.
In its universal, eternal sense, God’s kingdom encompasses everything
that exists, because God is the sovereign ruler over all of His creation. David declared that truth in Psalm 103:19 ‘The
Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over
all.’ Historically, God has mediated His
rule on earth through His people, first through Adam and Eve, then Abel, Seth,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, the judges of Israel
(including Samuel), and the kings of Israel and Judah. In the present era, God mediates His rule
politically through human governments (Rom. 13:1-7) and spiritually through the
church (Acts 20:25; Rom. 14:17; Col. 1:13).
In the millennial kingdom the political and religious elements of God’s
temporal, earthly rule will be reunited in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now we are going to get into something that will cause
some disagreements with some who belong to the church today and that is the
different views as to when and what, and if this kingdom spoken of in
Revelation 20 and the many other places in the Bible that we looked at
yesterday will happen. I have mentioned
that my position has always been a premillennial view of eschatology. I believe that if we are to take the
chronological order of what we are looking at in the book of Revelation we see
that after the Tribulation period is over with the second coming of Jesus
Christ to the earth and then we look at chapter twenty we see that the kingdom
age begins. I have mentioned that six
times in this chapter we see the words “one thousand years,” and that is
speaking of the length of the kingdom, for one thousand means millennium.
There as those who are called “postmillennialists” and
they teach that Christ returns at the end of the millennial kingdom. They are saying that things will get better
before the return of Christ while Premillennialists say things will get worse,
that of course being the time of the Tribulation. They believe that is the postmillennialists
believe that this millennial kingdom will be established by the church.
There is another view we will briefly discuss and that is
the “amillennialists” and they don’t believe that there will be a millennial
kingdom at all. Now neither of these two
views can be seen in the Scriptures.
Amillennialists believe that at this very moment that Satan is bound,
but this surely goes against what the Bible teaches. Revelation 20:1-3 states “Then I saw an angel
coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his
hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon,
the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand
years; 3 and he threw him into the
abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the
nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things
he must be released for a short time.” They also believe that the number 1000 is
symbolic to which John MacArthur quotes Robert L. Thomas who writes “If the
writer wanted a very large symbolic number, why did he not use 144,000 (7:1ff;
14:ff), 200,000,000 (9:16), ‘ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of
thousands’ (5:11), or an incalculably large number (7:9). The fact is that no number in Revelation is
verifiably a symbolic number. On the
other hand, nonsymbolic usage of numbers is the rule. It requires multiplication of a literal
12,000 by a literal twelve to come up with 144,000 in 7:4-8. The churches, seals, trumpets, and bowls are
all literally seven in number. The three
angels connected with the three last woes (8:13) add up to a total of
three. The seven last plagues amount to
exactly seven. The equivalency of 1,260
days and three and a half years necessitate a nonsymbolic understanding of both
numbers. The twelve apostles and the
twelve tribes of Israel are literally twelve (21:12-14). The seven churches are in seven literal
cities. Yet confirmation of a single
number in Revelation as symbolic is impossible.” I have to say that I could not say it better
myself.
Since yesterday’s SD was so long I will stop here and
continue with this introduction to chapter 20 in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life for today: When the
plain sense of Scripture makes sense seek no other sense.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to praise the Lord for leading me
through my teaching of our men’s Bible study today. I am truly thankful.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Goliath” (1 Samuel 17:23).
Today’s Bible
question: “What did the people in Babel
try to build?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/7/2015 1:39 PM
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