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Rev. 14
Do you “follow the Lamb wherever He goes?” What would that look like for you? Is there anywhere Jesus is going that you don’t want to follow? This chapter is a continuation of what we read yesterday. John gives us imagery presenting us with the choice that has existed since Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The choice is always the same. Will we choose life or will we choose death? It is our choice to make. In the Garden, the choice was presented as, “to eat, or not to eat”. Here in Revelation, we have the Lamb or the Beast. Whose mark will we take?
It’s easy to read about the choice and see that there really is no choice. Who would pass up life and all the goodness of God for the wrath and torment that exists outside His presence? As obvious as that choice seems, however, these images remind us that we face the Great Deceiver in making them. He is more than able to present the wrong choice as something good and desirable while making the right choice both feel and appear like it leads to death. It is critical that we don’t let Satan’s lies distort our knowledge of the truth.
That is why John says once again, “This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep His commands and remain faithful to Jesus.” (Rev. 14:12). We can do that because, as the rest of John’s revelation shows, God’s promise is true and sure. Thus, we can know that, just as it did for Jesus, our present suffering will ultimately lead to eternal victory.
Neh. 11-13
Nehemiah was gone for awhile and found lots of problems when he returned. What were the problems and what did he do about them? When the Israelites returned from exile, they not only restored the structure of Jerusalem and the temple, but they also restored the order of their worship. They set the priests and Levites over the various tasks established by King David. They also reestablished the system of support for these servants from the rest of the people, for they had all sworn an oath to not neglect the house of their God.
There is a law of thermodynamics that many people paraphrase as, “everything moves from order to disorder”. Purists geek out over that paraphrase, because that’s not technically what it says. But if that’s not the law of thermodynamics, I think it should be a law of something. Because I believe it’s true. Some might argue some exceptions, such as crystals, but even crystals need specific conditions to do their thing. In any case, the Bible makes it pretty clear that this statement is true of the human heart.
Once everything in Jerusalem was put back in order, people settled back into their normal lives. Nehemiah returned to his job with the king of Babylon. The people’s enthusiasm, and thus their commitment, faded. When Nehemiah returned, then, he found that all of that order had deteriorated into neglect of the house of God. From order to disorder with no effort at all. Which is precisely the problem. It takes concentrated effort to not only put but to keep things in order. If we want to abide in Christ and walk closely with God, we need to put effort into that relationship every single day.
Ps. 90
What does it mean that God is “our dwelling place?” How does the psalmist view time? How does this impact the way you think about your life? A dwelling is where we live. So God is where we live. Put another way, in God is where we have life. God’s anger, then, is what we experience when we step away from God.
“If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Ps. 90:11-12). Wow – those verses say so much! If we stopped to contemplate all that God is and what it really means to be away from His presence, none of us would choose to be away from Him. On the other hand, when we experience His presence we find that the “fear that is [His] due” turns into an equal measure of awe and gratitude. For so great are His mercies toward us. It doesn’t take a lot of wisdom to know these things. It does, however, take a lot of effort to not let the complacency of a life that seems a whole lot longer than it really is make us forget.