Revelation 17:6b-8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.\u00a07\u00a0Then the angel said to me: \u201cWhy are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery\u00a0of the woman and of the Beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns.\u00a08\u00a0The Beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss\u00a0and go to its destruction.\u00a0The inhabitants of the earth\u00a0whose names have not been written in the book of life\u00a0from the creation of the world will be astonished\u00a0when they see the Beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cThe inhabitants of the earth\u00a0whose names have not been written in the book of life\u00a0from the creation of the world will be astonished\u00a0when they see the Beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.<\/i>\u201d The \u201cinhabitants of the earth\u201d<\/i>\u00a0is a way of speaking about those who do not belong to Christ.\u00a0 These are they who deny the deity of Jesus (1 John 4:3<\/b>).\u00a0 It is clear that the Word of God clearly states that Jesus is God in the flesh (John 1:1, Titus 2:13, Philippians 2:5-8, Hebrews 1:8, John 1:3, Colossians 1:16<\/b>).\u00a0 In\u00a0Mark 2:3-12<\/b>\u00a0we read of friends of a paralyzed man taking extraordinary effort to bring him to Jesus, hoping that Jesus would heal his paralyzed condition.\u00a0 When Jesus saw that the man and his friends had faith that Jesus would be the answer for their friend He told the paralyzed man that his sins were forgiven.\u00a0 Now it would seem that the friends of the paralyzed man, and perhaps the man himself, were thinking something like \u201cWhat?\u00a0 We\u2019ve carried our friend so that Jesus could merely tell him that his sins are forgiven?\u00a0 We wanted Jesus to heal his paralyzed condition!\u201d\u00a0 The Word states that Jesus knew what those present were thinking in their hearts (consider that for a moment!).\u00a0 From a natural perspective, rather than a spiritual perspective, they were thinking that anyone could say the man\u2019s sins were forgiven.\u00a0 How could they even know if Jesus truly had the right to forgive sins?\u00a0 Some of the \u201cteachers of the law\u201d were sitting there thinking, within themselves (no verbalization), that Jesus was blaspheming because only God can forgive sin (which shows that all sin is first against God).<\/p>\n
Jesus had no responsibility to prove Himself\u00a0(Mark 8:11-13<\/b>), yet for the benefit of all there (and for the benefit of men throughout the ages, including us) He did illustrate His right to forgive sin.\u00a0 Coming down to their level of understanding He asked them what is easier to say, that the man\u2019s sin are forgiven or to heal him and tell him to get up and walk?\u00a0 To the natural mind, since it lacks understanding, it would be easier to say to that sins are forgiven (Though they would know that to God Himself, both are equally possible for God to do).\u00a0 After all, having said that, who could disprove whether the sins are forgiven or not (though sins in the mindset of the Jews at that time, were the cause of the man who was paralyzed, or from sins of his parents).\u00a0 They may have thought that any one of them could say that the man\u2019s sins are forgiven.\u00a0 To them that was easy to say but lacked proof.\u00a0 In their misunderstanding they likely thought that if his sins were forgiven then he would be healed.\u00a0 Jesus then healed the man and showed that He had the authority to both heal the man and to forgive his sins.\u00a0 Now the lawyers there (teachers of the law) rightly spoke that only God can forgive sins, and the healing of the man showed that Jesus definitely had divine power working through him.\u00a0 Jesus, by proving that He had the right for forgive sin (by healing the man), and He proved that He was (and is) God. \u00a0Thus Jesus was asserting His divinity.<\/p>\n
Also, only an evil man (or a crazy man) would accept worship that was intended for God. \u00a0In\u00a0Isaiah 42:8<\/b>\u00a0God clearly states that He will not yield the right to be glorified as God to any other.\u00a0 Yet Jesus allowed Himself to be worshipped (Matthew 28:9, Luke 24:52, John 9:38, John 20:28<\/b>).\u00a0 If Jesus were not God in the flesh He would have been sinning greatly to accept worship as God.\u00a0 But Jesus did not sin (1 Peter 2:22<\/b>).\u00a0 He indeed was God in the flesh.<\/p>\n
Therefore the \u201cinhabitants of the earth\u201d are those who refuse the obvious, that Jesus was God the Son in the flesh.\u00a0 They were not part of, and never will be a part of, God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n
God has always known who would be part of His kingdom.\u00a0 God knew who would respond to Jesus and submit to Him, and who would not (In\u00a0Romans 8:29<\/b>).\u00a0 Since God has always known who are His and who are not His, these inhabitants of the earth have never had their names written in the Book of Life.\u00a0 The Book of Life has the names of all those who belong to God and these who do not know, love and serve Jesus are not in the Book of Life because they are not God\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
The \u201cinhabitants of the earth\u201d are astonished, and deceived, because they refused the Truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10-13<\/b>). So they believe that the Beast is a god, and so by virtue of refusing the truth, have been consumed by a lie.\u00a0 Just as mankind has done throughout history and continues to do now.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0Revelation 3:4-5<\/b>\u00a0Jesus promises to the Church in Sardis\u00a0\u201cYet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.\u00a0They will walk with me, dressed in white,\u00a0for they are worthy.5\u00a0The one who is victorious\u00a0will, like them, be dressed in white.\u00a0I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life,\u00a0but will acknowledge that name before my Father\u00a0and his angels.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 We who belong to Christ are held close, are protected, and will forever be with Him.\u00a0 Praise God that we have our names written in the Book of Life and God has no intention of every blotting our names out of it. Praise God!<\/p>\n
Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Revelation 17:6b-8\u00a0–\u00a0When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.\u00a07\u00a0Then the angel said to me: \u201cWhy are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery\u00a0of the woman and of the Beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns.\u00a08\u00a0The Beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[1863,104,103,100,106,93,101,94,1871,17,711,10,757,105],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-colossians","tag-hebrews","tag-isaiah","tag-john","tag-luke","tag-mark","tag-matthew","tag-micah","tag-philippians","tag-psalm","tag-revelation","tag-romans","tag-thessalonians","tag-titus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1020,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/1020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}