Thoughts in Worship

Message Magazine's Online Devotional for Monday, October 19, 2015

Today’s Scripture:

“And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.” (Revelation 15:1–4).

Today’s Observation:

By now I am certain you have noticed that the Revelation of Jesus Christ is not a sequential book. There are times that the Lord compounds truth and carries us through a sequence of events, and then like a great teacher, He takes us back over ground He already covered, only with greater detail. Such is the case with today’s Scripture focus.

Now we are having a glimpse into the beauty of the awful seven last plagues. We do realize based on all we have said about the wrath of God, that some will have chosen to separate themselves from God and be destroyed in spite of the fact that God has plead with each person countless times, while providing every opportunity for us to live a glorious life with Him forever. Before this ultimate judgment there will be a time of trouble in which those who hate God will persecute His people, and simultaneously, God will be plaguing His enemies. The beauty of this account is how God is able to protect His saints while all of this strife takes place.

For some reason, which we will not explore here, many people have espoused the belief that God is not capable of preserving His people through the fiercest tribulation the world has ever seen. For whatever reason, they believe that just before the plagues fall on the wicked during this short period of time that God will secretly whisk away His people to hide in heaven until the plagues have accomplished their work. This is unfortunate for so many reasons. Among them are that it makes it seem that God is either sloppy or impotent. It makes it seem that He cannot preserve us through the enemy’s onslaught despite the fact that God promised to seal us before the craziness breaks out on earth. This makes it seem as though God is also unaware of whom the plagues are meant to chasten and that perhaps they might accidentally affect God’s people—a sort of “oops!” This also makes it seem that God was mistaken or lying when He said that when Jesus returns, it will be a grand display, not a secret! The Bible says that when Jesus returns everybody who’s alive will see Him; the graves of all His people everywhere will release those dear resting saints unto immortal, youthful vigor; His coming will be as the lightning spans the entire heavenly scene; there will be an unforgettable fire devouring in front of our King as He approaches; the sky will be rolled back like a scroll and make way for Jesus with a great noise; the trumpet of God will sound along with God’s own call and grand announcement, etc. There is so much more, but you get the point. There is no way that the arrival of Jesus will be a secret. There is no reason for God to sneak up on our unwary planet to kidnap us while everybody wonders where we went. Does the Bible give us any real life examples to help us get our minds around the beauty of all we have said? Yes!

When the children of Israel were just at the point of being delivered from Egyptian captivity, God had to loosen the grip of Pharaoh. He, like Satan, was unwilling to release God’s people. He had the insane idea (like Satan), that he could actually oppose God and...