SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/19/2015
9:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 The Incentives
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Rev. 22:13,
16
Message of the
verses: “13 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first
and the last, the beginning and the end.’
16 ‘I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the
churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’”
We begin today with the very last main-point in the book
of Revelation according to the outline from John MacArthur’s outline and this
section will cover verses 13-16, and 18-21 of the book of Revelation, which are
the remaining verses in our study.
MacArthur writes in his introductory commentary on this last main
section the following: 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.” You may remember that I promised to quote a
fairly long section from the sermon that covers this section, something that moved
my heart and had to do with this first sub-section “Because of Christ’s Person,”
and so that is what I want to do as a part of this SD today, but first I want
to quote from my Spiritual Diary from December of 2005 on what I wrote on these
two verses.
“Jesus goes on to explain in verse 13 that He is the
beginning and the end, and so He is the One who knows all things and will give
help to His children to complete the task that He is giving them to do in order
for them to receive His reward that He has for them” (From 12-09-05).
“Jesus identifies Himself in verse sixteen as the root
and the descendant of David, which speaks of both His Deity and also His
humanity. A root is under the ground and
cannot be seen, yet is most important to the plant or tree to which it is a
part of, for without it there would be no life in the tree. Jesus is the One who is the root of the line
of David, which shows His Deity, and He is of the line of David, showing His
humanity. Jesus goes on to say that He
is the bright morning star, and that is the brightest star as dawn is
beginning, and right now sin has caused darkness to be prevalent on planet
earth, but soon the Morning Star will come and bring light to this earth like
it has never seen since the Lord Jesus came the first time, and had a bright star
over Him in Bethlehem” (From 12-12-05).”
Now we will go to the quote from John MacArthur’s sermon
which is on who the Person of Christ is and why unbelievers should accept Him
because of who He is.
“Now let me show you
how that kind of falls together. First of all, the first incentive to accept
the invitation is because of Christ's person...because of Christ's person. The
first reason to accept the invitation to come and take the water of life which
is eternal life, as we've already learned, the first incentive is because of
who Christ is. It's because of who's inviting you, none other than the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lord of heaven, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the glory of
the eternal new Jerusalem. I mean, think about it. What he's going to say to us
here is as simply understood as this...we get invitations to go to various
places, some we accept and some we don't. I suppose our acceptance has a lot to
do with who invites us, is that not true? And if whoever invites us is
important enough in our judgment, we are more likely to accept the invitation.
“How about if the
eternal incarnate God, the King of Kings, the Lord of heaven, the glorious Lord
Jesus gave you an invitation. Would you respond? Purely on the basis of who He
is? A response is demanded. Verse 13, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first
and the last, the beginning and the end."”
“Now here the Lord is
speaking personally...personally. And He's identifying Himself with the same terminology
we found back in chapter 1 and verse 8, right at the beginning. This closing
has many components from the very beginning of this great apocalypse. In
chapter 8 verse 8, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." Here again He
reminds us of that. Chapter 21 verse 6, He said it again, "It is done, I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."”
“Why this? Well, the
readers of the book of Revelation, the original readers were, of course,
Gentiles. Because of that in that part
of the world, they spoke Greek. And so the Lord in His inspiring of this designation
of Christ identifies Him by the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet,
Alpha being the first and Omega being the last.
“What is the point of
that? It expresses infinity. It expresses eternity. It expresses the boundless
life of God which embraces everything, includes everything and transcends
everything. And it is then explained in verse 13, "I am the Alpha and the
Omega means I am the first and the last, I am the beginning and the end."
Now that's just three different ways to say basically the same thing, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the beginning, that is to say the source of all things. He is
the end that is the goal of all things, the consummation of all things. He is
the eternal transcendent infinite God. That kind of designation identifies
completeness, timelessness and sovereign authority. He is not just another man, He is not an angel, He
is not a created being, He is not some superhuman genius, He is not a
distinguished martyr, He is God eternal and almighty...the beginning and the
end, the first and the last.
“Such identifications,
by the way, are also given by the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 41 and
verse 4, "I the Lord am the first and the last, I am He." And then in
Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 10, again, "Before Me there was no God formed
and there will be none after Me, even I, even I am the Lord."
“In Isaiah chapter 44, the very next chapter, verse
6. "I am the first and I am the last." What does that mean? It means
there's no God beside Me. And then over in chapter 48 and verse 12,
"Listen to Me, O Jacob, I am He, I am the first, I am also the last and My
hand founded the earth," and so forth and so on. He is the only God. He is
the Alpha/Omega. He is the beginning and the end.
“Jesus Christ is the everything. If there is an ark
in which the family of Noah is saved, that ark is a picture of Jesus Christ. If
there is a lamb slain at the Passover, that lamb is a picture of Jesus Christ. If there is a kinsman redeemer, that kinsman
redeemer is a picture of Jesus Christ. Before time, after time, and all during time
He is the theme of everything. He is the everything. And at His designation as
Lord, Paul says to the Philippians, "Every knee shall bow." To be
saved is to be saved by Christ Jesus. To be a Christian is to be in Christ
Jesus. To have forgiveness is to be forgiven by Christ Jesus. To have hope is
to hope in Christ. To live is to live in Him.
“To leave Christ out of a life is to leave the sun out the day, is to
leave the moon out of the night, is to leave the waters out of the sea, the
floods out of the rivers. To leave Christ out of a life is to leave the grain
out of the harvest, the sight out of the eye, the hearing out of the ear, the
life out of the living. He
is the everything. And when He gives you an invitation, it's an
invitation you ought to respond to.
“Verse 16 further identifies Him in His own words,
verses 13 and 16, "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these
things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning
star." He is the author, He is the source behind everything that's been
described in Revelation. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these
things. The angels have brought the Word but the source is Jesus. It is Him who
gives this revelation and this final invitation.
“This is not a human call, is what he's saying. This
is not a human call, this is the Lord Jesus calling. I cannot imagine anybody getting an invitation
from the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the
end, Jesus Himself and not responding to it. This is not a human
fantasy. This is not all written by some committee. This is not a concoction of
John's imagination. This is not a fake. This is not a forgery. "I,
Jesus." That is a unique expression in Scripture, showing how personal
this revelation and this invitation really are. My angel, they all belong to
Him, all the holy angels, has brought it but it is from Me.
“Now notice He says, "My angel has come to
testify to you these things for the churches." Of course we note all the
way through the book is written to all believers, but its message must be
preached to the whole world. But believers have to preach it so it's written to
them to preach to the rest.”
Okay, I hope that this little section from MacArthur’s
sermon on this subject will move you as it did me and if you have never
accepted the invitation from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords it is time to
do that by telling Him that you are a sinner and that you desire to invite Him
into your life to forgive you of your sins and to come into your life in the person
of the Holy Spirit to lead and to guide you for the rest of your days on earth,
and then to go with Him to heaven to live there with Him forever and ever. If you need to make that decision I pray that
you will.
Now we want to look at this last part of verse
sixteen which is also one of my favorite subjects in the Word of God for in it
we see both the fact that Jesus Christ is eternal God and also has become
man. He is the God Man, not a half God
and a half man, but 100% God and 100% Man.
We read “I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning
star.” Think about this of what He is saying,
“I am the root” the root has to come before the plant, or in this case the descendant,
for Jesus is saying that He is the One who was before David, the eternal God,
and the One who comes out of the loins of David, as He came from David’s line
as promised to David in 2 Samuel “7:16
"Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your
throne shall be established forever."’"” Take the time to read the verses before this
on to get the whole picture, but God is saying to David that through His family
comes the Messiah and that is what Jesus is saying in verse sixteen of our text
today.
Now we have to deal with what He means about the “bright
morning star.” John MacArthur writes “Finally,
Jesus describes Himself as ‘the bright morning star.’ To call someone a star was in biblical times
(as it is today) to exalt him (cf. Dan. 12:3).”
He goes on to write “Though Balaam was a greedy prophet for hire, God
nevertheless used hi to make an accurate prediction of the coming Messiah: ‘A star shall come forth from Jacob, a
scepter shall rise from Israel’ (Num. 34:17).
Peter wrote of the time when ‘the day dawns and the morning star arises
in your hearts’ (2 Pet. 1:19). Jesus
promised to give the overcomers at Thyatira the ‘morning star’ (2:28)—that is,
Himself. As the morning star heralds the
arrival of the day, so Jesus’ coming will herald the end of the darkness of man’s
night, and the glorious dawn of His kingdom.
Christ is the ‘Light of the world’ (John 8:12) who calls sinners to
drink of the water of life. And to those
who heed that call He promises, ‘Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden,
and I will give your rest’ (Matt. 11:28); and ‘The one who comes to Me I will
certainly not cast out’ (John 6:37).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: As I am reminded of the person of Jesus
Christ, the high and lofty “morning star,” “the root and offspring of David,” I
have to wonder in awe why it was the He gave me an invitation to spend my life
with Him. I am thankful for John MacArthur’s
description of Jesus and thankful for the wonderful invitation He gave to me on
Jan. 26, 1974.
My Steps of Faith for
Today:
I want to tell others of this same invitation so they too can experience
eternal life which begins the moment you accept Jesus Christ as your own
personal Savior.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:
“Covenant, contract, or agreement.”
Today’s Bible question: “Was
Elijah east or west of the Jordan when he ascended to heaven?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/19/2015 10:47 AM
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