SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/30/2024 9:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Intro to Matthew 24:36-51”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 24:36-51
Message of the verses: “36 "But of
that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but
the Father alone. 37 “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the
days of Noah. 38 "For as in those
days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not
understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of
the Son of Man be. 40 “Then there will be two men in the field; one will be
taken and one will be left. 41 “Two women will be grinding at the mill;
one will be taken and one will be left. 42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day
your Lord is coming. 43 “But be sure of this, that if the head of the
house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have
been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44
“For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an
hour when you do not think He will. 45 “Who then is the faithful and
sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them
their food at the proper time? 46 “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds
so doing when he comes. 47 “Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of
all his possessions. 48 “But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My master
is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat
and drink with drunkards; 50 the master of that slave will come on a day when
he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, 51 and
will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that
place there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.”
This section of Scripture is something that has been
sort of a mystery to me. When I first became
a believer I was listening to sermons by Hal Lindsey, and after become a
believer I continued to listen to his preaching on cassette tapes, and in one
of his sermons he was saying that this section was talking about those who
would go in the Rapture of the church. I
know now that this entire section of Matthew 24 and 25 speaks of the
tribulation period for the church is not mentioned as it is already gone to be
with the Lord in the Rapture. The part
that I don’t understand in these verses is when the Lord says that no one will
know when He returns, and the reason that I have a problem with that statement,
even though I know it is true, is that according to prophecies in Daniel which
tells us how long the tribulation period will last and that the Lord will
return after that is that date is pretty much known. I will continue to study this section as I
continue to listen to the two sermons from John MacArthur on these verses and
also continue to look at His commentary until it makes sense to me, and that best
way that will happen is to ask the Lord for wisdom to understand this section
in the right way. With all of this said
I suppose that there will be a great number of quotes from MacArthur’s sermons
and commentaries to help me understand it better.
Let
me begin by quoting from MacArthur’s commentary the following: “Daniel and Revelation also speak of an
expanded period of 1290 days (Dan. 12:11; Rev. 12:6).” I have to stop at this point from his
commentary and say that in Daniel 12:11 it does say 1290 days, but in Revelation
12:6 we read “Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she *had a place
prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two
hundred and sixty days.” He goes on to
write “30 days more than the basic 1260 of the Great Tribulation.” In the case of Daniel I agree that it says
1290 days, but not in Revelation 12:6.
He then goes on to write “Daniel also mentions a 1335-day period (Daniel
12:12), adding another 45 days to make a total of 75. As suggested in chapter 3 of this volume, it
seems that the best explanation for those additional days is that they will
cover the time when the Messiah descends to the Mount of Olives, creates the
great valley in which the nations of the world will be judged, and executes that
judgment (see Zech. 14:45; Matt. 25:31-46).”
I will look at Zechariah 14:4-5, but not all of the verses in chapter 25
of Matthew as we will go over them when we get there later on this year. “4 In that day His feet will stand on the
Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of
Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so
that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward
the south. 5 You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the
mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the
earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD, my God, will
come, and all the holy ones with Him!”
Now in his commentary John MacArthur writes Zechariah 14:45, but there
is no Zechariah 14:45 so I have to believe it means Zechariah 14:4-5 which what
I put here.
I
will quote two more paragraphs here and then will stop for today. “Nevertheless, even with all those
indisputable signs and precisely designated periods, the exact day and hour will
not be known by any human beings, not even Tribulation believers, in
advance. Although the Lord gives no
reason for their not knowing, it is not difficult to imagine some of the
problems that such knowledge would cause.
For one thing, if unbelievers knew the precise time of Christ’s arrival,
they would be tempted to put off receiving Him as Lord and Savior until the
last moment, thinking they could make the decision any time they wanted before
He actually is scheduled to appear.
“But
even if they planned to wait until the precise date and hour of Christ’s
appearing, they would not know if they would live until that time. Like the rich farmer (Luke 12:16-20), they
will have no guarantee of the length of their lives and therefore have no
guarantee they will still be alive when Christ appears. Although the generation living when the signs
bein will not pass away until Christ returns (Matt. 24:34), many individual
members of that generation will pass away, come by natural causes and a large
percentage at the hand of the Antichrist.”
1/30/2024 10:33 AM
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