SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
11/20/2015 9:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Because of
the Exclusivity of Heaven
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
22:14-15
Message of the
verses: “14 Blessed are those who
wash their robes, so that they
may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the
city. 15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons
and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices
lying.”
Allow me to repeat what John MacArthur wrote at the
beginning of his commentary to show us what we are no looking at: “Surrounding the invitation in verse 17 are
four incentives for sinners to accept it: because of the Lord’s Person, because
of the exclusivity of heaven, because of the truthfulness of Scripture, and
because of the certainty of the Savior’s return.” We have already looked at the first incentive
and in today’s SD we will look at the second one as noted in the focus section.
11/20/2015 8:05 PM
Now
do you remember that there are seven beatitudes in the book of Revelation as we
have been going over each of them, and this is the last one as verse 14 begins
with the word “Blessed. We believe that
this blessing is presented by the Lord Jesus Christ and it is on those who was
their robes. This phrase speaks
graphically on the death of Jesus Christ.
Let us go back and look at Revelation 7:14 “I said to him, "My
lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out
of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.” John is
asking who these people were those who were in heaven that he is looking
at. “9 After these things I looked, and
behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all
tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands (Rev. 7:9).” I remember when I was studying the book of
Joshua and Israel were about to cross over the Jordan to get into the Promised
Land and they were told to wash themselves and also wash their clothes before
they entered into the land. Dr. Wiersbe
pointed out that this washing was a symbol of making themselves spiritually
clean and when we read of this in Revelation that they have had washed their
robes it speaks of that they once were dirty in their sins and not have been
washed in the blood of the Lamb. Dirtiness
is a symbol of sinfulness as seen in Isa. 64:6 “For all of us have become like
one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And
all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Zechariah 3:3 “Now Joshua was clothed with
filthy garments and standing before the angel.”
Now we will look at verses that speak of cleansing: “Psalm 51:7 “Purify me with hyssop, and I
shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Isaiah 1:18 “"Come now, and let us
reason together," Says the LORD, "Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be
like wool.” Titus 3:5 “He saved us, not
on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His
mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” Now as we have said this cleansing comes
through the blood of Jesus Christ and I will only look at a few verses on this
as there are many we could look at.
Romans 3:24-25 “24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the
redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His
blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because
in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” Hebrews 9:12 and 14 “12 and not through the
blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place
once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” “14 how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse
your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Hebrews 10:19 “19 Therefore, brethren, since
we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,” Hebrews
13:12 “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own
blood, suffered outside the gate.”
Now
we have to talk about the tree of life, and if we care to look all the way back
to the book of Genesis we could find that there was a tree of life in the
garden: “Gen. 2:9 Out
of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the
sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
“Gen.
3:22 Then the LORD God said,
"Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and
now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and
eat, and live forever"-
“Gen.
3:24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He
stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to
guard the way to the tree of life.” So
we can see the progression of the tree of life that was found in the garden of
Eden in these three verses. Unlike what
happened in the garden, those who have received the washing from sin that marks
salvation will forever have the right to the tree of life writes John
MacArthur. The tree spoken of here will
be in the capital city of Heaven as we have already looked at.
John
MacArthur writes “Heaven is exclusively for those who have been cleansed from
their sins by faith in the blood of Christ and whose names have been ‘written
from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been
slain’ (13:8). In contrast, everyone
else will remain forever ‘outside’ the New Jerusalem in the lake of firs
(20:15; 21:8), because ‘nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination
and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in
the Lamb’s book of life’ (21:27). As in
21:8, a representative (through no exhaustive) list of the type of sins that
exclude people from heaven is given to John.”
I
am only going to mention a little bit more about two of these sins listed in
verse fifteen and the first one is dogs. Now the dogs mentioned here are not
the cute little dogs that sit on our laps when we watch TV at not, for in
Biblical times dogs were not pets.
MacArthur writes “They are despised scavengers that milled about cities’
garbage dumps (cf. Ex. 22:31; 1 Kings 14:11; 16:4; 21:19, 23-24; 22:38). Thus, to call a person a dog was to describe
that person as someone of low character (cf. 1 Sam. 17:43; 24:14; 2 Sam. 3:8;
9:8; 16:9; 2 Kings 8:13; Phil. 3:2); in fact, the first time blatantly impure
sinners are called dogs is in Deuteronomy 23:18, where male homosexual
prostitutes are in view.” “"You
shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of
the LORD your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination
to the LORD your God.”
Now
the next one I have mentioned and that is the word “sorcerers” and this word in
the Greek is the word “pharmakos”
which is the root word of the English word “pharmacy.” This speaks of drugs, the kind that people
take to get high.
Okay
I lied we will look at “Immoral persons” and as John MacArthur writes this
comes from “pornos” the root word in
the English we get “pornography.”
We
also see the statement “everyone who loves and practices lying.” This reminds me of something from the first
chapter of the book of Romans where Paul writes a long list of steps people
fall into worse and worse types of sins and actually ends up with homosexuality
at the bottom but then he writes in Ro 1:32 “and although they know the
ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they
not only do the same, but
also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am
thankful that because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me on the cross
that I will be one of those who will be with Him in Heaven. I know that I don’t deserve it but through
His grace, and mercy, and the faith that He has given me to believe I will be
there and I cannot be proud of this as if I did something to deserve it.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to thank the Lord for this day that
did not start out like I thought it would, but God showed me a purpose as to
why He has me living where I am living as I sometimes don’t like where I am
living, but sense that God wants me here and today was one of those times where
He showed me I am where He wants me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “East” (2 Kings 2:1-11).
Today’s Bible
question: “Name a sin that is committed
against one’s own body?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/20/2015 8:56 PM
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