SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/19/2015
1:14 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 The Scene
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Revelation 20:11-12a
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,”
I want to go back and talk about the phrase “and no place
was found for them,” and the comments that I want to make on this phrase is
that the reason that there was no place found for them is because the entire
created universe that God created is now gone, and because souls live forever
this is all that is left, the souls of those who did not take the time to investigate
the fact that salvation was provided for them through the blood of Jesus Christ
shed on the cross. I am not sure that
believers will be able to see this last judgment for the lost or not as I have
read or heard different opinions on this matter. If we are and we see love ones there how will
we feel about it is the question that I have, but if these love ones were
continually told that they too could be saved and did not take that opportunity
then perhaps we will feel that God’s justice will be accomplished. I cannot say how a person will feel about
these things when they get their glorified bodies for there will have to be
some changes when that happens.
Let us once again go back to 2 Peter 3: 10-13 “10 But the
day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away
with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth
and its works will be burned up. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed
in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
12 looking for and hastening the coming
of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning,
and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise
we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”
I want to quote what John MacArthur writes on these
verses: “The Day of the Lord will come
suddenly, unexpectedly, and with disastrous consequences for the unprepared—just
like the coming of a thief. First, ‘the heavens will pass away with a
road.’ Rhoizedon (‘roar’) is an onomatopoetic word; that is, a word that
sounds like what it means. It describes
the loud whistling, crackling, rushing sound that will result when ‘the
elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will
be burned up…[when] the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements
will melt with intense heat.’ Stoicheion (‘elements’) refers to the
basic building blocks of matter, such as atomic and subatomic particles. ‘Destroyed’ is from the verb luo, and could be translated ‘dissolved.’ The present universe will explode like a
gigantic nuclear bomb, and the resulting ‘intense heat’ will literally dissolve
all the matter in it. The present laws
of thermodynamics, which state that matter can neither be created nor
destroyed, will no longer be in effect.
As a result, the universe ‘will be burned up’; it will be totally
consumed. The absolute reverse of
creation will occur. It didn’t take eons
of evolution to create the universe, nor will it take eons to uncreate it. The uncreation of the universe, like its
creation, will take place by the word of God.”
We now want to look at the last part of our verses as
this whole thing has presented a very fearful scene, and John goes on to write
in the first part of verse twelve “And I saw the dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne.” MacArthur
writes “The setting is the indescribable void, the inconceivable nothingness
between the end of the present universe and the creation of the new heave and
the new earth.” All of the prisoners in
this scene are physically dead, because there are no more physically alive
people to be found as the believers now have glorified bodies and these
prisoners have some sort of body that I am not sure of what it will look like
at this point in my study. We saw the
last unbelievers killed during the end of the Millennium at the battle of Gog
and Magog. As far as the last living
believers MacArthur comments they “will be translated and transformed into
their eternal bodies, like Enoch (Gen. 5:24), Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), and the
raptured church (1 Thess. 4:13-18).”
I have mentioned that all unbelievers will be standing
before the throne of God during this judgment, not just those from the
Millennium. It is good to point out once
again that no believer will be judged at this White Throne Judgment for all believers
have already been judged at the cross when Christ died for them and God does
not see the believers but sees Christ who paid the price for them.
John speaks of all unbelievers in this 12th
verse where he says “both great and small.”
Every unbeliever will face the Judge during this judgment. John MacArthur quotes John Phillips who
provocatively wrote: “There is a
terrible fellowship there…The dead, small and great, stand before God. Dead souls are united to dead bodies in a
fellowship of horror and despair. Little
men and partly women whose lives were filled with pettiness, selfishness, and
nasty little sins will be there. Those
whose lives amounted to nothing will be there, whose very sins were drab and
dowdy, mean, spiteful, peevish, groveling, vulgar, common, and cheap. The great will be there, men who sinned with
a high hand, with dash, and courage and flair.
Men like Alexander and Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin will be present, men
who went in for wickedness on a grand scale with the world for their stage and
who died unrepentant at last. Now one
and all are arraigned and on their way to be damned: a horrible fellowship congregated
together for the first and last time.”
These are very sobering words to contemplate for sure.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I know that we as
believers like not to think about this passage in Revelation, but it is there
to help us have the courage to tell others what they will face without Christ.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Pray that God will use me to tell others of
what their fate will be without Christ.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Peter” (John 21:16).
Today’s Bible
question: “Nehemiah came to rebuild the
walls of which city?’
Answer in our next SD.
10/19/2015 2:03 PM
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