SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
11/13/2015 4:06 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Immediate
Worship
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Rev. 22:8-9
Message of the
verses: “8 I, John, am the one who
heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at
the feet of the angel who showed me these things. 9 But he said to me, "Do
not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets
and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God."”
I want to begin with what I wrote on
December 7, 2005 on these two verses: “It
seems to me that this is the second time that John has been told by an angel
not to worship him, but that he was a fellow servant of God, and then the angel
tells John, “Worship God.” I would suppose
that because of the awesomeness of this angel that John got carried away, as I
am sure that this was a very traumatic experience for John to go through,
somewhat like what Daniel went through when he would receive messages and see
visions that came from God to reveal to him the future. John saw a lot of death and destruction in
this vision from God, and it must have had a profound affect on him. One of the things that I am sure that
bothered John throughout all of this was the judgments on the lost.
“The angel tells John to worship
God, and this is a short, but true statement that all believers need to follow,
because like John, believers may tend to worship other things instead of God,
and this is a good reminder for all believers in every age, from when this
letter was written up until the time when Christ returns to set up His Kingdom,
and throughout all of eternity.”
Now we will move on to what I find
from these verses today as whenever I look at the Word of God there is a good
chance that the Lord will show me something new, as the Word of God is
inexhaustible.
John MacArthur writes something
important at the beginning of his commentary on verse eight: “Though not expressed in the New American Standard Bible Updated
Edition, a form of kai (kago; from kai, ‘and ego, ‘I’) begins verse 8. As it did in verse 7, it marks a change of
speakers; the speaker is no longer Christ, but John, who names himself for the
first time since 1:9. The inspired
apostle adds his testimony of the truthfulness of Revelation to that of the
angel (v. 6), declaring ‘I John, am the one who heard and saw these
things.’ Then, overcome by what he
‘heard and saw’ John ‘fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed’
him ‘these things.’ He had the proper
response, worship, but being overwhelmed with amazement, John inadvertently
directed it to the wrong object. The
apostle knew that angels were not to be worshiped; in fact he had earlier been
rebuked for attempting to do so (19:10).
But like Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:28), Daniel (Dan. 8:17; 10:9), and Peter,
James, and he himself at the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:6), John simply
collapsed in wonder and worship.”
We read in the Bible that God alone
is to be worshiped, as one of His attributes in to be Jealous, and I have
mentioned that this is not the same kind of Jealousy that we humans have, but
shows that God alone is the only One worthy to be worshiped. Remember the first commandment “1 Then God
spoke all these words, saying, 2 "I
am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery. 3 "You shall have
no other gods before Me. 4 "You
shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above
or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not
worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the
fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to
thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments (Exodus 20:1-6).”
I believe that it is very
informative to learn that be reminded that the angel is a created being just as
we are created beings, and Paul even writes that some day we will rule over
angels: “1Co 6:3 Do you not know that we will judge angels?
How much more matters of this life?”
Again John MacArthur writes some
interesting things I need to pass along and this is about angels: “Throughout Scripture, angels are seen
serving God’s people. They were involved
in giving the Law to Israel (Acts. 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2) and are
frequently seen protecting believers (cf. Ex. 23:20; 2 Chron. 32:21; Ps. 91:11;
Dan. 3:28; 6:22; Acts 5:19; 12:7-11).
Summing up the ministry of angels to believers, the author of Hebrews
asks rhetorically, ‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render
service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?’ (Heb. 1:14).” These are some nice things to be remembered
as sometimes we do forget these kinds of things.
Let us talk once more about who we
are suppose to worship by looking at Colossians 2:18 “Let no one keep
defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of
the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by
his fleshly mind.” “18 Don’t let anyone
condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying
they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them
proud (NLT).” Yes we are to worship God
as Jesus told the woman at the well “20
"Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." 21 Jesus said to her,
"Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in
Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 “You worship what you do not know; we
worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 "But an hour is coming, and now is, when
the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such
people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 “God is spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth’ (John 4:20-24).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: “Worship
God” is a simple short sentence, but filled with so much meaning that we need
to be reminded of it each and every day of our lives. Wake up in the morning and remember to only
worship God, as you go through your day remember to worship God and not our
jobs, hobbies, money, car, friends of things like this, then go to bed
remembering to worship God as we ask God to control our dreams so that we will
not have the kind of dreams that are not worshipful to our God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord to remind me throughout the day to only worship God.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Sabbath”
(Exodus 31:15-17).
Today’s
Bible question: “What two people shall
be one flesh?”
Answer
in our next SD.
11/13/2015
4:44 PM
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