SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/9/2015
10:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Introduction to Rev. 22:6-12
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
22:6-12
Message of the
verses: 6 And he said to me,
"These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the
prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must
soon take place. 7 “And
behold, I am coming
quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book." 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." 10 And he said to me,
"Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is
near. 11 "Let the one who does
wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the
one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy,
still keep himself holy." 12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to
render to every man according to what he has done.”
I have just finished listening to about 3/4th
of the message from John MacArthur that goes along with this section of
Revelation. The total time of the
message is about one hour and fifteen minutes and it is packed with many things
that have to do with our responsibility after studying this book of
Revelation. At this time we will continue
looking at the introduction of these seven verses from Revelation 22.
One of the things that I remember in the sermon mentioned
is the fact that we see the words “Behold, I am coming quickly.” We see this in verse seven and also in verse
twelve and let’s take a look at verse twenty: 20 “He who testifies to these
things says, "Yes, I
am coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” This is the second to
last verse in the book of Revelation. As
we have studied this book you may have remembered that that phrase was also
seen in three other places: Revelation
3:11 “’I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take
your crown.” In this verse it is a
promise of blessing, however in 2:5
’Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the
deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your
lampstand out of its place-unless you repent.”
In Revelation 2:16 we read “’Therefore repent; or else I am coming to
you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.” Both of these judgments associated with this
phrase are in the section in which Jesus Christ is speaking to one of the
individual churches that are found in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter three and verse three and also in
chapter sixteen and verse fifteen we see that Jesus likens His return as a
thief, but unlike a thief Jesus will not come to steal, but he comes to take
back what is rightfully His. We have
learned in our study of the Rapture from the book of Revelation and also in
First and Second Thessalonians that the Rapture could happen at any time. Now at this time we want to look at some
passages from the New Testament to show that the people living during that time
were looking for the immediate return of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that John was looking for His
return while on the island of Patmos when he received this book. I want to mention that when I put on the
Spiritual Armor which is seen in the book of Ephesians that when I put on the
helmet of salvation I actually look at 1 Thessalonians 5:8 which reads “But
since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of
faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.” I do this because I am looking forward to His
coming just as those in the early church were.
Let us first look at 1 Corinthians 1:7 “so that you are
not lacking in any gift, awaiting
eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now 1 Corinthians 4:5 “Therefore do not go on
passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both
bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of
men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” Now we find an interesting word in our next
verse from 1 Corinthians and the word is “maranatha” which means “O Lord, come.” Now remember that the NT was written in the
Greek language, and this word maranatha is an Aramaic word, so why would Paul
include an Aramaic word to people who only spoke Greek? The answer is that they would have know what
this word meant from the teaching of Paul while he was with them, and so Paul
includes this word in his letter to them reminding them again that the Lord
Jesus Christ will soon return. Now we
move to Philippians 3:20 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we
eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Next we look at 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 “9 For
they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and
how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait
for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who
rescues us from the wrath to come.” John
MacArthur writes Later in that same epistle, Paul expressed his own hope that
he might be alive at the Lord’s return ‘For this we say to you by the word of
the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not
precede those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Thess. 4:15). The apostle rebuked those believers at
Thessalonica who were so preoccupied with the Second coming that they were not
working: ‘10 For even when we were with
you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he
is not to eat, either. 11 For we hear
that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all,
but acting like busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the
Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.” We can see from this illustration that
although these people were not looking at how they should live their lives in
light of the return of Jesus Christ, they did expect Him to return at any time. We will look at a few more NT verses that
speak of our Lord’s return: “looking for
the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior,
Christ Jesus (Titus 2:13).” James 5:7 “Therefore
be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the
precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early
and late rains.” John writes in 1 John
2:28 and also 3:2 “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears,
we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” “2
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what
we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will
see Him just as He is.” (Just a side
note and that is that some believe that John wrote his three letters after his
experience in writing Revelation.) John
MacArthur concludes his writing about these NT verses by saying “These passages
demonstrate the early believers’ anticipation of their Savior’s coming again.” With that we will stop and pick it up
tomorrow, Lord willing.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Live my life like
the Lord will come back today, but also live my life like I will be here for a
while. This may sound strange, but I am
looking forward to the return of Christ, but I am not waiting for His return
like some of the Thessalonians by being up on the top of a hill and doing
nothing.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to see me through some things
that I am trying to get sorted out.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Isaac” (Genesis 22:7).
Today’s Bible
question: “Of what country was Tiglath
Pileser king?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/9/2015 11:23 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment