SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
11/4/2015 8:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus: It’s
Internal Character
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
21:21b-22:2
Message of the
verses: “And the street of the city
was pure gold, like transparent glass. 22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and
the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations
will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into
it. 25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never
be closed; 26 and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into
it; 27 and 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.
“1 Then he showed me a river of the water
of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in
the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life,
bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves
of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
I have to say that I listened to John MacArthur’s sermon
on this text we are looking at and there is a lot of things to go over and to
talk about as not everything in these verses is easy to understand and not all
scholars who write on these verses agree and so we may actually put in some
things that could be different or options to what we are looking at. One thing I do want to stress and that is
that what we are looking at is real and not some vision to just give us some
spiritual insight, although all Scripture should give us spiritual insight, but
again what we are looking at and reading about is real and all believers who
ever lived on planet earth will one day live in the New Jerusalem.
John’s angel guide now takes him into the New Jerusalem
and the first thing he sees is that the streets are made of transparent gold,
something we do not have here on earth.
I once heard someone speaking about this and he said that the reason
gold is not transparent here on earth is because no one can get all of the
impurities out of it. Everything we have
seen so far in this city is transparent and we have learned the reason for that
is that God’s glory can shine through all of this transparency.
Now we want to talk about the fact that there is no
temple in the New Jerusalem. I want to
go back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve first lived when God created
them. We read that God walked with them
in the garden after He created them and they had conversations with Him during
this time. There was no need to have an
intercessor between them and God and no need for a temple to worship God for
there was no sin at that time, but once sin came into their lives they could
not walk with God like they were first doing and they needed an intercessor
between them and God and they would need a temple, something that would come
later on. In heaven there will be no
need “for a temple for there is no sin in heaven and we read that the Lord God
the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”
John MacArthur writes “The blazing glory will fill the new heaven and
the new earth, and there will be no need for anyone to go anywhere to worship
God. Life will be worship and worship
will be life. Believers will be
constantly in His presence (cf. 21:3); there will never be a moment when they
are not in perfect, holy communion with the Lord God the Almighty and the
Lamb. Thus, there will be no need to go
to a temple, cathedral, church, chapel, or any other house of worship. Believers will be the true worshipers God has
always sought (John 4:23).”
We will pick up more of what the inside of the New
Jerusalem looks like in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: While listening
to the sermon I mentioned yesterday John MacArthur said that when he was a
child he was afraid that heaven would be boring, and those thoughts have run
through my mind, but after reading about all that is there I have to believe
that it will be anything but boring, for I will be with my Savior and Lord and
will not have to worry about any sin to stop me from worshiping Him the way He
desires me to.
My Steps of Faith for Today: God will give me peace, insight and a clear
mind as I lead a Bible study this morning.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Judah” (Genesis 37:26-27).
Today’s Bible question: “What is the middle verse in the Bible?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/4/2015 9:24 AM
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