Allow These Words To Encourage And Enrich You Spiritually And Strengthen You Physically

This is proving to be a longer and more exhaustive study than when I first set out but I am discovering it to be so enriching and so spiritually valuable that it is my desire to share these finds with you.

I have been researching the book of Revelation in the New Testament. It has taken me many weeks and months but it has been so worth all the effort.

In Chapter 16, we arrive at a section which deals with the judgement and the judgements of Almighty God, and Jesus Christ and angels are all involved as these visions and pictures are given to the apostle John, who was the youngest of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ when he was called by the Lake of Galilee some sixty years previously.

Read this book carefully and prayerfully. Allow its riches and blessings to inspire and motivate you to be loyal and faithful and merciful and loving!

In verse 12 of Chapter 16, we read of how the great river Euphrates dries up. Is that to permit some invading army from the East to march to the plains of Megiddo to let the Battle of Armageddon begin?

The plain of Megiddo is just a few miles south of Nazareth. I have been there on various occasions and have examined its terrain and have considered its future horrors!

This has been the focus of man’s attention over these past years, but in verse 17 we read of the climax, and the end, and the anger of God boiling over, and it is the end of civilisation as we know it, as we read of the break up of society as we know it.

How far are we away from that? If society goes on as it has been going over these past forty years or so, there may not be all that much left to break up.

This is being written when Egypt and Syria are in turmoil and where there is chaos and bloodshed and distress in so many nations around our hurting world.

Yet for those who are in Christ, it will be the beginning, because as we read on, we will be reading of a new heaven and a new earth, but first of all God has to clear the site.

It is all very rational and logical.

Three times in this Chapter, in verses 9 and 11 and 21, we read how men are mentioned cursing God.

What kind of language do you use at work and at home? Do those around you appreciate the words which emerge from your lips?

Men will curse God right to the very end. That is how some people will react to what is just and righteous and true. Men are unrepentant!

Men are either cursing God, or praising and worshipping God, and you cannot have both emerging from the same mouth.

Prime Ministers and leaders need to remember this and be aware of this because we hear of appalling language used at times by those who ought to know far better.

They will not give in. They will rather die than repent.

Men like darkness, even though it results in pain.

We, who belong to Jesus Christ, are called to walk in the light, and be filled with His Love, and be anointed with the Holy Spirit.

This judgment is unremitting and unrestricted and unlimited going over the entire earth, and it is undiluted. This is God’s wrath against sin.

Let verse 15 bless you. It is tucked away here and it is almost unnoticed.

The time of this final judgment is unexpected. The timetable has never been published. Be ready so as not to miss the train.

Blessed is he who stays awake. Those who are awake and those who are watching, and those who are ready, will not lose anything. We read “and keeps his clothes with him”! What does this mean? If a Roman soldier on guard duty was found to be asleep, he would be stripped naked and exposed for all to see. This was his punishment and this was his shame. He would be ridiculed in this way.

These persecuted people would know what that phrase meant.

Jesus is saying that when I come, make sure you are awake and alert and ready, and you will not be disappointed or ashamed at my appearing!

There is a picture of complete disintegration. It is done. Judgement is done and completed and over.

Does that remind you of another time when these words were spoken – on the tree, when Jesus Christ said it is completely completed? The work of salvation has been done and the blood of atonement is shed.

That was not to deter nor reform. It was essential for the righteousness of God that the Lamb of God was slain.

God made a perfect work of salvation, and He will make a perfect work of judgment.
Just as salvation was perfection in every detail, so will be judgment!

The last and final word belongs to God.

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children’s Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.