SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/17/2015
8:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Invitation
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
22:17
Message of the
verses: “17 The Spirit and the bride
say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let
the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life
without cost.”
It may seem a little different that we begin this
section, which includes verses 13-21 with verse seventeen, but there is a good
reason for that and we will explain what that reason is in a moment. There are actually two invitations given in
verse seventeen, one is given by the Spirit and the bride who are inviting the
Lord Jesus Christ to return to earth, while the Lord Jesus Christ is giving on
last invitation to unbelievers to come and receive salvation, and that is why
we begin with verse seventeen.
We have been looking at the promise of the return of
Jesus Christ all throughout this book of Revelation and now we see at the
concluding section that both the Holy Spirit and the bride of Christ say to
Him, “Come.”
Even though we do not see any specific reason for the
Spirit to say to the Lord Come, but the rest of Scripture suggests two reasons
for Him to say this, both a negative and a positive reason. As we look throughout history we have seen
that the Lord Jesus Christ has been denied, ignored, and rejected. We see that He was mocked and blasphemed His
word and the work of the Holy Spirit, and so at the conclusion of this book the
Spirit now wants the Lord to return to receive the honor and glory due to
Him. It has also been the work of the
Holy Spirit to convict people of their sin and many have rejected His calling
and so we read in Genesis before the flood came that the Lord says “My Spirit
shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his
days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” Now as we look at this verse this
is speaking of the Spirit’s prompting for the next one hundred and twenty years
before the flood came and destroyed all air breathing beings with the exception
of Noah and his wife, sons and their wives, eight people in all. This will also happen during the end times
when the Spirit will not be working in the same way as He is now during the age
of grace, the church age.
We mentioned a positive side and John MacArthur writes “On
the positive side, it is the desire and ministry of the Spirit to glorify the
Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:14). But the
last view the world had of Jesus was of Him on a cross between two criminals,
rejected, despised, and mocked. The
Spirit longs to see His fellow Member of the Trinity exalted in beauty,
splendor, power, and majesty. That will
happen when Christ returns in triumph at His second coming.”
The bride of Christ is also awaiting the return of
Christ, and says so in verse seventeen.
People throughout the church age have been looking forward for the
return of Jesus Christ, have prayed for His return for many, many years. All the apostles thought He would return in
their day and many generations of the church age have thought the same
thing.
Now we want to look at the second reason of the word “Come”
as it is used in this verse, and this speaks of God calling unbelievers to
salvation as we mentioned. MacArthur
writes “The phrase ‘let the one who hears say, ‘Come’’ invites those who hear
the Spirit and the bride to join with them in calling for Christ’s return. Obviously, they cannot do so until they come
to faith in Him; only the redeemed can truly long for Him to appear. The implicit warning is not to be like those
who ‘having ears, do…not hear’ (Mark. 8:18; cf. Deut. 29:4; Jer. 5:21; 6:10;
Ezek. 12:2). The one who hears with
faith and believes is the one who will be saved, because ‘faith comes from
hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ’ (Rom. 10:17).”
We will have to conclude this section in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Babylon” (2 Kings 24:1).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who was the father of Seth?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/17/2015 9:05 AM
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