SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/21/2005
My Worship Time Focus:
Great White Throne Judgment
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation 20:11-12
Message of the verse: “11 ¶
And then I saw a great white throne, and One seated upon it from whose
presence both earth and sky fled and vanished.
12 Then; I saw the dead, great
and small, standing before the throne; and the books were opened. And another
book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what
was written in the books concerning what they had done.”
This
section, from verse 11 through verse 15, is probably the most sobering verses
in all of the Scriptures. This theme is
given other places in the Bible, but in these verses are seen the culmination
of what these other verses were written about.
Daniel saw this happening in a vision just like John is has seen it and
written about it here. Daniel 7:10 &
11 has this to say about this scene: “10 ‘A river of fire was flowing And coming out
from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were attending Him, And myriads upon
myriads were standing before Him; The court sat, And the books were opened.
11 ‘Then I kept
looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking;
I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body was destroyed and given
to the burning fire.’” In this
section John is seeing the judgment of Antichrist, and it seems to be this same
judgment that John is writing about.
John
is writing here about the Great White Throne Judgment, which is the place where
every unbeliever will be judged and then will be thrown into the lake of fire,
which is also named hell. In verse
eleven John writes that there is One sitting on a great white throne, and that
One is Jesus Christ and John goes on to write that the earth and the sky had
vanished. It is good to remember how all
of this has come into existence in the first place, and that is through the
spoken Word of God, as something was made from nothing, and now the process
will be reversed. Peter writes about
this in 2 Peter 3:10, “But the
day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away
with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth
and its works will be burned up.”
In
verse twelve John describes those who will be at this judgment and also the
things that will condemn them, that is the books, and one of them will probably
be God’s Word, the Bible. The Book of
Life is also there, and in this book are the names of all who have been
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and none of these who are at this judgment
has their name recorded in that book.
There are other books there that will have recorded in them the things
that all of these people will have done, and that is the reason that they find
themselves there. None of these people
will have ever accepted the forgiveness that God has provided, and so they must
stand on their own righteousness, and that will never be good enough to satisfy
a Holy God.
It
seems that there will be different degrees of punishment in hell, not only can
it be seen from these verses, but also from other places in the Scriptures such
as Matt. 11:20-24.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Because of the seriousness of these verses,
and also because of the great commission that Jesus Christ gave just before He
went back to heaven, I must continue to pray that God will give me opportunity
to tell others about the Good News of Jesus Christ. I must also continue to pray for the souls of
those that God has laid upon my heart, pray that God will save them.
The Word of God has challenged my
heart, and it has also brought conviction to my heart as I read and studied it
this morning.
My Steps of Faith Today:
Continue to trust the Lord to lead and to guide my life, to continue to
pray and to read the Scriptures so that I can understand better what it is that
I am to be doing, and to be praying about.
To continue to trust the Lord as He leads me and directs my path through
these trials that he has seen fit to send me into.
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