"The Second Trumpet" (Rev. 8:8-9)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/22/2015 9:09 AM

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus:  The Second Trumpet

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                           Reference:  Revelation 8:8-9

            Message of the verses:  “8 The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, 9  and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed.”

            I want to first of all quote something that I wrote on June 14, 2005 on these two verses which speak of the second trumpet judgment:  “This second trumpet judgment is another judgment that is on the earth, while the latter judgments have demons involved with them.  I have heard different things to help describe this judgment, such as the burning mountain that was thrown into the sea could be a missile with a cobalt bomb on it that would cause the sea to turn red from the cobalt such as seen in “red” tides.  It could also be a meteor that comes from outer space.  At any rate God is in charge of sending these judgments to His earth and this one will be very bad as it will cause a third of the sea to turn to blood, or at least red, and a third of all marine life to die and a third of all ships to be destroyed, and this will have a devastating effect upon those who live on planet earth.”  I have mentioned that it was the end time prophecies that the Lord used to bring me to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and that I read and listened to Hal Lindsey in my early years of being a believer.  One of the things that he taught from the book of Revelation was that man is perfectly capable to destroy this planet because of the technology that he has and so he would go through these judgments and write possibilities of how man could be used by God to fulfill these judgments.  He quoted Re 11:18 “And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”  As I stated in our last SD many people have different ideas on how God will bring about these judgments, but the main thing to remember is that God is in charge and that He will fulfill these judgments as He sees fit, but again it is interesting to listen to different people as they describe how they think that these judgments will be fulfilled by God.  Another thing to remember is that John was writing this around 96 AD and therefore was using language from that time period to try and describe what he was seeing and if he actually did see a missile fall into the sea he would describe it in first century language.  We can’t neglect why all of these judgments are happening as we study Revelation and not get so caught up in how they are going to happen.  God will take back planet earth from evil men and from Satan and his demons and it will be accomplished through these judgments and at the end of these judgments Jesus Christ will return to take over Planet Earth and Satan will be in the lake of fire along with all of the evil men of that time and Christ will rule from Jerusalem for 1000 years as we will learn, but even that is not the end of the book as we will see later on as we continue to study it.

               Notice the words from verse eight “something like” as John describes what this second trumpet entails, as he again uses a simile.  Now we saw the first trumpet fall on the earth while this one falls on the oceans.  If I am not mistaken the Atlantic Ocean is about one third of the oceans, so it is possible that this happens there.  The oceans were given to mankind as a blessing from God and they provide many things for man such as food and oxygen as much of the oxygen comes from the phytoplankton and algae that are in the seas.  Rain comes many times from the sea as water evaporates from the ocean and then is transported by winds to land, so the oceans are very important to man, and this judgment is on one third of the ocean waters.  John MacArthur writes “But people have repaid God’s gracious provision with ingratitude and idolatry, revering the sea as the supposed source of their remotest evolutionary ancestors.  As He devastated the land environment, the true God judges the sea.” 

            The view that John MacArthur has is as follows:  “This is evidently a giant meteorite or asteroid, surrounded by flaming gases set ablaze by the friction of the earth’s atmosphere, on a collision course with the earth.”  If what he speculates happens then this will be like one of the movies that I have seen as mankind watches from afar as the meteorite or asteroid heads toward earth and they can do nothing about it.  Of course this will happen and many people and creatures will die because of this judgment. 

            The red color of the sea could come from cobalt as suggested for after all a red tide comes from cobalt, and or, it could come from the dying animals in it as their blood turns the ocean red.  God did turn the Nile River red as one of the judgments against Egypt so there is no reason to believe that this kind of thing could not happen again.  Another thing this judgment will effect is that a third of the ships on the oceans will be destroyed and perhaps this will come from the giant waves that will happen because of whatever it was that falls into the seas. 

            MacArthur finishes this section on this second trumpet judgment by writing “So the first two trumpets will bring devastating judgment on both the land and the sea, which are the beginning of the final catastrophes God will unleash on the sinful, rebellious world.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is hard to fathom all the devastation that this earth and the people who live on it will have to endure.  One of the reasons that I write these Spiritual Diaries and post them onto the internet is so people can read about these things that are soon to come and realize that they do not have to go through them.  They need a ticket to leave planet earth before these events begin to happen and the price of that ticket has been paid for by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for the sins of mankind and all one has to do is accept the exchange that He has for them.  “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him 2 Cor. 5:21).”  It’s a matter of believing faith to receive this gift of salvation and be assured if the Rapture happened today they would not be here for the events we are studying about.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to better understand and live in the love He has for me.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Bilhah” (Genesis 35:25).

Today’s Bible question:  As a physician, what particular ministry of Christ does Luke give special prominence?”

Answer in our next SD.

4/22/2015 9:55 AM   

 

"The First Trumpet" (Rev. 8:7)

 

SPIRITUA DIARY FOR 4/21/2015 8:16 AM

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus:  The First Trumpet

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  Revelation 8:7

            Message of the verses:  “7 The first angel blew his trumpet. Hail and fire mingled with blood appeared, and were hurled upon the earth. One-third of the earth was burnt up, one-third of all the trees was burnt up, and every blade of green grass was burnt up.”  (Philips) “7 The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up (NASB).”

            The lull is officially over as we come to the first trumpet being blown by the first angel and the first thing we see is hail, something that is associated with divine judgment in the Scriptures.  We first see this in the 9^th chapter of the book of Exodus.  “18  "Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will send a very heavy hail, such as has not been seen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now (Exodus 9:18).”  God said to Job in 38:22-23 “22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 Which I have reserved for the time of distress, For the day of war and battle?”  “2  Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty agent; As a storm of hail, a tempest of destruction, Like a storm of mighty overflowing waters, He has cast it down to the earth with His hand (Isa. 28:2).”  “’I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,’ declares the LORD (Hag. 2:17).”

            Next we look at fire and the first place we see fire as a judgment of God is found in the book of Genesis “24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven (Gen. 19:24).”  Since we are studying the 38^th chapter of Ezekiel let’s look at the 22^nd verse there:  “"With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone.”

            Joel 2:30 speaks of fire mixed with blood as he describes the Day of the Lord “"I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire and columns of smoke.”  John MacArthur writes “The specific cause of hail and fire…thrown to the earth is not revealed, but from a scientific standpoint an earthquake of the magnitude and extent of the one in 8:5 would likely trigger worldwide volcanic eruptions.  Besides spewing vast quantities of flaming lava (which could be bloodred in appearance) into the atmosphere, the atmospheric disturbances caused by those eruptions could trigger violent thunderstorms that would produce large hail.  Such thunderstorms would be in keeping with the imagery of 8:5; after the angel hurled his censer to earth ‘there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning.’  Dr. Henry Morris suggest that the blood may be actual blood, or John may be using descriptive language:  ‘the masses of water vapor blown skyward might well condense in the intense updrafts as hailstones…The blood of entrapped men and animals might be mingled with them, or possibly showers of liquid water drops might be so contaminated with dust and gases as to appear blood-red.’”  This quote and the next one come from The Revelation Record by Henry Morris.

            “It may be possible that angelic hosts will divert the path of one of the many comets with which we are familiar which the solar system abounds so that the earth will pass through its tail.  The most spectacular comet which we are familiar—Halley’s Comet—would not need to stray too far from its normal orbit to envelop Earth in its fiery train.  Whether such an experience would produce the phenomena described in this passage we do not know, since our scientists have no experimental data to go on yet.” 

            We have seen before in my Spiritual Diaries speculations as to how things like this will be made to happen as seen in the book of Revelation, but the most important thing to realize that they will happen just as the Lord says that they will.  Jesus says the following at the end of this book which we will speak more of when we get there “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." 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. 18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.”  We who are a part of the church age have the privilege of reading and studying this book as earlier in that chapter it is recorded that the things in this book are not to be sealed up which is unlike what an angel told Daniel at the end of his book.  However God chooses to bring about the things found in this book, whether He does all of them or whether man is involved in some of these judgments will be up to Him, but take heed they will happen.  I will continue to give my opinion and the opinions of others as to how some of these judgments may take place but take them with a grain of salt as no one can be sure as to how God will cause these things to happen, but in my mind it is a good thing to speculate how it could happen.

            We next see that a third of the earth is burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and then he writes “all the green grass was burned up.”  The environmentalists are not going to be happy at this time, those people that mostly don’t care about the environment only the money they can make by their so called concerned.   What we are reading about in Revelation is that God is judging the people on the earth and it is He who is destroying it, but it is also He who will put it back together again after the Tribulation is done to make it livable again for His Millennial Kingdom. 

            John MacArthur offers one more quote as Robert Thomas comments on the difficulty that is posed by the destruction of all the green grass being burned up:  “This poses a dilemma, because grass still exists when the fifth trumpet arrives (9:4).  It is hermeneutically wrong to see this as an inconsistency retained to preserve artistic effort…Two considerations help to resolve the quandary.  First, a time lapse between the first and fifth trumpets allows time for grass to be regrown after the burning, but before the assault of the fifth [trumpet].  Second, in most parts of the earth grass is not green the year round, but is seasonal.  Burning of all the grass that is green during a particular season would leave the remainder untouched until its season of dormancy is over…whether the affected portion was one-third or some other percentage, the text does not say.  The description simply says ‘all’ that is green at the time of the plague.  Either of these two explanations allows for taking ‘all’ in its literal sense without contradicting 9:4.”  This quote comes from (Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary).

            We can see that this judgment will have devastation effects on planet earth as far as killing men, and also animals.  It will also have devastating effects on the climate and the production of growing food which will cause more death.  We cannot forget why these judgments are happening as we have already discussed and that is to retake the earth from sinful man and also Satan and his fallen angels, and as stated earlier God will put the earth back together again as this will be no problem for Him to do for after all He created it in the first place.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Although it is at times difficult to study about the things in Revelation such as these judgments in the end it is good to know that God is in complete control of all these things and also it is good to know that Jesus is coming again.  As I put on the Spiritual armor in the morning I put on the helmet of salvation and I remember the following verse:  “1Th 5:8 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.”  This speaks of the return of Jesus Christ and how I am to live, as Warren Wiersbe writes “I put on the helmet of salvation.  May I remember today that Jesus is coming again.  Help me to live in the future tense.  Protect my mind from discouragement and despair.” 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I want to remember that the successful Christian life is a series of new beginnings, and I also want to love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.  I desire to live in the love of Christ and to better understand it too.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Zarephath” (1 Kings 17:10).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who was the mother of Dan and Naphtali?”

Answer in our next SD.

4/21/2015 9:27 AM

 

"The Storm" (Rev. 8:5)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/20/2015 9:44 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                              Focus:  The Storm

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  Revelation 8:5

            Message of the verses:  “5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

            Now as we look at what happens it probably surprised John to see that the same angel that had just offered prayers up by offering incense up as the prayers of the saints suddenly takes the same censer and fills it with fire and throws it to the earth where there is a great thunder storm and then an earthquake.  The first thing I want to address is whether or not this was a part of the seventh seal, or part of the first trumpet or neither one.  I have always been taught that the seventh seal was the beginning of the first trumpet and then the seventh trumpet was what brought on the first bowl judgment so my answer is that it is neither, but perhaps this was the answer to the prayers of the people under the altar who had been praying for revenge on those who had killed them and many other believers.  The silence is over the prayers are over and now comes the answer of judgment from God and this will not be the end of the judgments as we will see in our continued study of this eighth chapter of Revelation.

            John MacArthur writes about the peals of thunder and the sounds and flashes of lightning as these “are associated with the awesome majesty of God’s glorious throne in 4:5; 11:19; 16:18 (cf. Ex. 19:16-19).” So I would say that it is safe to assume that this is no ordinary thunderstorm.  Now as far as the earthquake we have no details as to where it was or who it but it could be as strong as the one seen in the sixth seal as the judgments seem to be getting worse. 

            Now we must look at the sad part of what we are reading about and that is that many of the people on earth who according to what we read in chapter six realize that these judgments are coming from the Lord and they will do nothing about confessing the fact that they are a sinner and repent and be saved.  The 144,000 Jewish evangelists are at work, the judgments are at work what come from God, there will be an angel preaching from the heavens, and then also as we see later there will be two witnesses who will preach the gospel, and yet people will continue to love their darkness and not come to the glorious light as we see in the following verses:  “19  "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

            When Jesus came the first time and gave many proofs that he is indeed the Messiah, the promised One from God who would die on the cross and make salvation possible for all who come to Him in repentance, and yet people turned their backs on Him then and are still doing the same now and what will the result be “26  For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27  but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES (Heb. 10:26-27).” 

            The offer of salvation is here now and when a person accepts that offer at this time they will miss all of the horrible things that we have and are about to study that will soon take place on planet earth.  The Rapture of the church can happen at any moment and once it happens those who have rejected the gospel, even if they finally realize that it was the truth will have to go through the Tribulation Period and only one out of four people who begin the Tribulation will end up alive after it is over.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:   One of the things that I see in this section is prayer being answered, and even though it is seen in judgment the prayers were offered sincerely and God answered them.  Prayer is something that gives us a direct contact with the Lord and I want to take better advantage of it.  Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter five that we are to pray without ceasing and Warren Wiersbe’s comment on that passage is that we have to keep the phone off the hook.  I want to do a better job at that.

My Steps of Faith for today:  To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to better understand the love Christ has for me and to live in that love, and also to keep the phone off the hook.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Ahab” (1 Kings 22:30).

Today’s Bible question:  “Where did Elijah go to be fed by a widow woman?”

Answer in our next SD.

4/20/2015 10:29 AM

           

" Supplication" (Rev. 8:3-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/19/2015 8:05 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                           Focus:  Supplication

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  Revelation 8:3-4

            Message of the verses:  “3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.”

            Let’s begin with what I wrote in June of 2005:  “Verse three speaks of something very Jewish as far as their ceremony and practice goes that was practiced in the OT.  The priests would take fire from the alter, or hot coals, and then start the fire to burn incense to the Lord.  This was done two times a day, in the morning and in the evening.  It is thought by some that Aaron’s sons who died by offering strange fire was doing this procedure the wrong way when the Lord killed them.

            “The incense is a picture of the prayers of the saints that come up to God as a pleasing aroma.”

            There are some who believe that the angel spoke of in this section is the Lord Jesus Christ since of the priestly work that is being done.  MacArthur writes:  “That identification is unlikely, however, for several reasons.  First Christ is already identified in the heavenly scene as the Lamb (5:6; 6:1; 7:17), distinguishing Him from this angel.  Second, while the pre-in carnet Christ appeared as the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, Jesus is nowhere identified as an angel in the New Testament.  Third, the reference in verse 2 to the seven actual angels defines the meaning of the term in this context.  Then angel in verse 3 is described as ‘another’ (allos; another of the same kind; c. 7:2) angel like those in verse 2.  Finally, everywhere He appears in Revelation, Jesus is clearly identified.  He is called ‘the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth’ (1:5), the son of man (1:13), ‘He who is holy, who is true’ (3:7), ‘the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God’ (3:14), the ‘Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of Jessie’ (5:5), the Lamb (6:1; 16; 7:17; 8:1), and Lord of Lords’ (19:16).  If He were the One at the altar, it is reasonable to assume that He  would be specifically identified.”

            In Isaiah 6:6 we see the altar that this angel is standing at, and we know from Exodus 30:3 that the altar is made of gold.  “5 Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs (Isa. 6:5-6).”  “"You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and its sides all around, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding all around for it (Ex. 30:3).”  God is speaking of the altar of incense in this verse and we need to remember that Moses was told by the Lord to do everything as far as the tabernacle like what God had shown him on the mountain, and this was a copy of what was in heaven, so now we are seeing the original in this section.  In the Jewish Temple and also before that the tabernacle the altar of incense was close to the Holy of Holies, which is where God dwelt.  I have already mentioned how and what the priest did in the earthly tabernacle or temple in the quote from my previous SD on these verses.  This is what the father of John the Baptist was doing when Gabriel told him that he was going to have a son as seen in the Gospel of Luke:  “8 Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division, 9  according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering (Luke 1:8-10).”  The burning of the incense is a symbol of the people’s prayers offered up to the Lord.

            The angel took the incense, which in verse three we are toll that there was much incense, and as we stated it is the prayers of the people and he “add it to the prayers of all the saints.”  We are not told who it was that gave the angel the incense, but according to John MacArthur the word in the Greek for “was given” is didomi and this word is used many different times in the book of Revelation as something that was given by God.  Perhaps that the prayers that were given were the ones that the Tribulation Saints prayed for in the fifth seal judgment and now more prayers were also being offered to God so that He would destroy Satan, and that sin may be defeated, and also that their deaths would be avenged (See Rev. 6:9-11) for a quick review.  There were probably even more saints on earth that were praying that this would happen and this represents the incense that the angel is offering up on the altar of incense. 

            We saw in the fifth seal in chapter six the prayers of those under the altar, and then the sixth seal brought more devastation on the earth, next we saw the four angels stopping the winds from the four corners of the earth so that the 144,000 could be sealed and then we saw another description of the Tribulation saints and now the seventh seal is about to be opened and with it there will be more judgment from the Lord on sin so what we are looking at is the answers to the prayers that were being offered up to the Lord.  I have to believe that many of the believer’s on earth at this time know what is going on and they want sin to be judged and the earth given back to be in control of God as Satan will be defeated and the Kingdom will begin.  In what we know as the “Lord’s Prayer” a part of it a prayer that “Thy Kingdom come,” and this is part of what the believers on earth are praying for at this time.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am learning more things about prayer than I have ever learned before as this passage speaks of prayers and that they go up before the Lord in heaven.  Last year in our study of the letters of 1 & 2 Thessalonians I learned much about how better to pray for my Pastors and I do this each day and even intensify it on the weekends in preparation for the Lord’s day preaching and other activities.  Prayer is something that is a great privilege for believers to participate in and I want to take advantage of it, praying for things that I learn about in the Word of God.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to continue to learn more about the love Christ has for me and live in that love.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “The things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put on my robes’?”

Answer in our next SD.   4/19/2015 8:55 AM

 

             

Sounding (Rev. 8:2)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/18/2015 8:50 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                                Focus:  Sounding

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  Revelation 8:2

            Message of the verses:  “2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.”

            The half-hour of silence is not over in heaven and so John writes what he saw in verse two and what he saw was “the” seven angels, the ones who stand before God, and given to each of them was a trumpet.  Why do I make such a big deal about the word “the”?  It is a definite article so it is speculated that these are what some call “presence angels,” as they are always standing in the presence of God.  John MacArthur writes “The verb translated stand is in the perfect tense, which indicates that they were in the presence of God and had been there for a time.  Scripture describes various ranks and orders of angels, such as cherubim (Gen. 3:24) seraphim (Isa. 6:2), archangels (1 Thes. 4:16; Jude 9), thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities (Col. 1:16), and powers (Eph. 6:12).  These seven appear to be one such order of high-ranking angels.  Gabriel, who appeared to Zacharias and Mary, may have been one of them, since he identified himself to Zacharias as ‘Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God’ (Luke 1:19).”

            The angels were each give a trumpet in preparation for the trumpet judgments that were about to come upon the earth.  Remember when we were in the 7^th chapter of Revelation, right at the beginning we saw that there were four angels who were stand at the four corners of the earth holding the wind back?  The reason they were doing that was to have the things that we saw in Revelation seven taken care of and now another set of judgments are about to come upon planet earth so I believe that these angels will stop holding the wind so that these judgments can begin to take place.  Angels participated in the seal judgments and they will in the trumpet judgments as well as the bowl judgments.  Jesus spoke of the angels participating in the eschatological judgments that would take place in Matthew 13:39-41 “39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. 41 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness.”  Look now at verses 49-50 “49  "”So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, 50  and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Let us now look at chapter 16:27 “"For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.”  Matthew 25:31 “"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.”  I want to include a verse here that Paul wrote that helps me put into perspective what we will one day be “1Co 6:3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?”  Paul here was speaking of believer’s in Corinth who were suing other believers and in this section Paul comes down hard on them as he tells them not to do this and then tells them in the future you will be ruling angels. 

            Trumpet is used 58 times in the NASB and trumpets is used 44 times in the NASB.  Trumpets were used in war times, and also in the feasts that the Jewish people celebrated as there is a feast of trumpets.  I once read a book by a Jewish believer who wrote about how the order of the feasts in the Old Testament showed that the rapture would come before the tribulation and it was something that I have since read from other authors and the feast that they spoke of for the rapture was the feasts of trumpets, and if memory serves me correctly that feast comes after the feast of Pentecost, and that is when the Church era began so it does make sense.  But trumpets were used in a verity of ways in the Bible and now they again will be used to bring on judgment. 

            These trumpet judgments are even more severe than the first set of judgments as we will see as we continue our journey through the book of Revelation.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I go back to the verse in 1 Corinthians it helps me to put things into perspective as I have a glimpse of what will take place in the future and I am a bit in awe of it.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to better understand and to live in the love that Christ has for me.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “He told Cornelius to stand up” (Acts 10:25-26).

Today’s Bible question:  “What did Jesus speak to His disciples in the 40 days after the resurrection?  Look in Acts 1:3 for some help.

Answer in our next SD.

4/18/2015 9:31 AM

"Silence" (Rev. 8:1)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/17/2015 11:15 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                         Focus:  Silence

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  Revelation 8:1

            Message of the verses:  “1 When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.”  Question:  Do you suppose that John had a watch on so he could tell how long a pause there was before these judgments begin?  I suppose that many people will have different ideas as to how John knew how long the silence was.  I wrote the following on the 31^st of May of 2005 “As far as the half hour silence in heaven that John writes about, this could very well be how long it seemed to him that this silence was.  This was definitely the lull before the storm, for when these judgments began there surely would not be silence upon the earth.” 

            We have written earlier about all of the noise that was going on in heaven as seen in earlier passages like 4:5; 4:8; 4:11; and 5:2.  Loud is used ten times in the Book of Revelation in the NASB, silence only once in this verse we are looking at today.  As stated before God must like loud noises and talking for we see it a lot. 

            In response to all of the verses that John MacArthur references’ he writes the following:  “But after all that loudness, as the full fury of the final judgments is about to be released, ‘silence’ falls on the heavenly scene.  The implication is that when the judgment about to happen becomes visible as the seventh seal is broken and the scroll unrolled, both the redeemed and the angels are reduced to silence in anticipation of the grim reality of the destruction they see written on the scroll.  The ‘half an hour’ of silence is the calm before the storm.  It is the silence of foreboding, of intense exception, of awe at what the Lord is about to do.”

            As we are about to look what unfolds after this seventh seal is unrolled is something that when we read about it we surely don’t want to be here to experience it.  I am amazed as I study the attributes of God and better get to know them that I can see them as I study the Scriptures.  God has every right to do to planet earth what He wants to do to it, which is in the characteristic of His character and attributes.  We tend to think that God owes us something, but in fact He does not owe us anything at all, but through His grace, mercy, and love He has provided a way for us to escape hell, and the Tribulation period.  We should be thankful everyday for the grace, love, and mercy that God gives all who live on planet earth in what is called “common grace,” that is giving us food to eat, water to drink, and things like this, but there is also God’s saving grace as he calls His children to salvation and they accept the salvation that He offers.  This what we are looking at today is a very sobering time as all heaven goes silent for a short period of time before all hell is unleashed on planet earth.

            Psalm 76:8-9 says “8 You caused judgment to be heard from heaven; The earth feared and was still 9 When God arose to judgment, To save all the humble of the earth. Selah.”  Habakkuk declares “"But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him’ (Hab. 2:20).”  Zephaniah writes “Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near, For the LORD has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests (Zeph. 1:7).”  Finally we read in Zechariah 2:13 “"Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD; for He is aroused from His holy habitation.’”

            In our noisy and fast passed world we need to take time to be silent before the Lord so that He can speak to us through His Word and through His Spirit.

            MacArthur finishes this section with the following words “While eternal heaven has no time, the apostle John who is seeing the vision does.  Each minute of that half hour of silence must have increased the sense of agonizing suspense for John.  Heaven, which had resounded with loud praises from the vast crowd of redeemed people and angels, became deathly still.  The hour of God’s final judgment had come—the hour when the saints will be vindicated, sin punished, Satan vanquished, and Christ exalted.  The greatest event since the Fall is about to take place and all heaven is seen waiting in suspenseful expectancy.”  These are very fitting words to end this section as all heaven was waiting for judgment and we will begin to look at that in our next SD.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As stated earlier I need to take time to be silent before the Lord to better understand what He has planned for my life each day.  This has caused me to think of a song that I once studied the lyrics to and reported my findings to a church group as we were going through a very difficult time.  I took the liberty to adding a word to the song title by saying “It Takes Time to be Holy.”  The lyrics go as follows: 

1. “Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
   Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
   Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
   Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.
2. Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
   Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.
   By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
   Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.
3. Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;
   And run not before Him, whatever betide.
   In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
   And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word.
4. Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,
   Each thought and each motive beneath His control.
   Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,
   Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.”

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to continue to learn to live in the love Christ has for me.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Seven years old” (2 Kings 11:21).”

Today’s Bible question:  “What did Peter do when Cornelius fell at his feet and worshiped him?”

Answer in our next SD.

4/17/2015 12:11 PM

 

Introduction to Revelation 8 (Rev. 8:1-5)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/16/2015 8:48 AM

My Worship Time                                                                 Focus:  Introduction to Revelation 8

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                Reference:  Revelation 8:1-5

            Message of the verses:  “1 When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

            We will be looking at the seventh seal over the next few days and as we look at the first verse we see that just as the other seals had been broken by the Lord Jesus Christ so this one is also broken by Him.

            A little review is always good so we will do that as we begin to look at chapter eight.  We have learned that what we are now looking at is what the Bible describes as “The Day of the Lord,” and we believe that this began with the opening of the sixth seal.  As the seals were opened we first saw false peace, then war, then famine, then death, and then we saw vengeance.  All of these judgments were horrifying, but these are only the beginnings of what we will begin to see as we look at the seventh seal being opened.  As we studied the last chapter and read about the Tribulation Saints who were then in heaven we saw that the Lord gave comfort to them and then listed a number of things that they had to endure before their deaths in order for them to get to heaven.  "They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat (Rev. 7:16).”What we have been seeing is that the Lord is about to take back the earth in a final holocaust of wholesale destruction and will end Satan’s and man’s rule on planet earth and will then replace it with the Millennial Kingdom headed up by His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Man actually figured out that is was the Lord who was responsible of what was going on as we read when the sixth seal was opened, but all many of them wanted to do was to die so that they would not see any more of what was going on with these judgments.  The problem was that if they died they were still going to face His judgment in hell.

            Now remember that this scroll that we were introduced to in chapter five is the title deed to the universe including planet earth and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain is the only One who can open up the seals on this scroll.  This scroll contains the judgments that will take place in the Day of the Lord, and as we will see they will continue to get worse and worse in intensity.  Jesus called this last three and a half years of the Tribulation Period the Great Tribulation, and it is also known as the Time of Jacob’s trouble. 

            What is contained in this last seal judgment?  Well that is what we are about to see in these first five verses of chapter eight, but the answer is that this last seal will open a series of seven more judgments called the Trumpet Judgments, and then the last Trumpet Judgment will open up the Bowl or Vial Judgments.  John MacArthuto understandugh some believe the events of the trumpet and bowl judgments happened simultaneously with those of the sixth seal, it seems better to understand them as telescoping out of each other sequentially.  That the seventh seal contains the seven trumpet judgments seems clear, since there is no description of judgment in the seventh seal, but an anticipation of severe judgment followed immediately in the next by the seven trumpet judgments.  In a similar manner, the seventh trumpet does not describe a judgment (10:7; 11:15-17), but rather contains the anticipation of heavenly rejoicing over the judgment to come, which will lead to the final destruction of Satan and establishment of the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ.  As 10:7 indicates, the seventh trumpet is the ‘finish.’  Chapter fifteen and verse one makes clear that the seventh trumpet, which finishes the work of judgment, contains the final fury of God’s wrath, which the pouring out of the seven plague judgment pictures:  ‘Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.’  Chapter 16, verse 1, identifies these seven plagues as ‘seven bowls of the wrath of God.’  They are then described in detail in the remainder of chapter 16 (vv. 2-21).”

            Chapter fifteen and verse one is a favorite verse because it speaks of the wrath of God being complete after these judgments are finished, and that is a good thing.

            John MacArthur concludes “Four key words may be used to describe the events associated with the opening of the seventh seal: silence, sounding, supplication and storm.”  We will begin to look at these four different words in our next SD as we continue on our journey through this wonderful and final book of God’s Word.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The simple fact of Revelation 15:1 is that God’s wrath will be done once the last seven plagues are finished, however when our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross He cried out “It is finished,” and this means paid in full.  God’s wrath was done for those who will accept the forgiveness that Christ has for us as He paid for our sins, however for those who decide not to accept this gracious offer His wrath is not finished yet.  Think about this truth.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength and to better understand and live in the Love Christ has for me.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Paul left town.”  As I looked over that question this is the only correct answer.  I misread it in my mind and that is why I said there was two correct answers.

Today’s Bible question:  “How old was Jehoash when he began to reign in Jerusalem?

Answer in our next SD.

4/16/2015 9:34 AM