DAY 814 - You Are in Danger! (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

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                               Today's Reading: Revelation 12:1-6

** If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from my Devotion on Fire blog:

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Please click this link to read Revelation 12:1-6

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 12&version=ESV

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=启 示 录 12&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Today's passage is very difficult to understand. You may have other interpretation from other commentaries other than Bishop N.T. Wright. For me, Bishop's Wright gives us a clear way to understand this passage. 

Let's take a look at what Bishop N.T. Wright says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :

     The  child whom the woman bears is …  Jesus himself. He is the Messiah, the one whom God calls to bring the nations into line…
     The woman in the story..is a 'sign', not a literal mother.  It is far more likely that two figures stand behind her. First, there is Israel herself…who now takes centre stage in God's purposes for his world, is the 'priestly kingdom, holy nation' of Exodus 19.6.  She represents the entire story of God's people, chosen to carry forward his plans for the nations and indeed for the whole creation.  That is why the sun, moon and stars form her robe, her footstool and her crown.
     That is why, too, the forces that range themselves against the creator God are determined to strike at her, and at her child…The dragon is doing his best to snuff out those purposes before they can get under way…
     The second image behind the woman in this passage may well be Eve, the original mother of all human life…The two identities go together.  If the woman is 'Israel', she is for that reason the one in whom God's purposes for humanity are to be realized.  And that purpose included, as a central and necessary part of the agenda, the crushing of the ultimate power of evil.  The destroyer is to be destroyed…
     The dragon …  a figure of considerable power.  He is himself, after all, 'in heaven'(verse 3).As in the Old Testament, 'the Adversary', the 'satan', is part of the heavenly court, who rebels against the creator's plans for his world.  The results of this rebellion are not in doubt: attacks from all sides on the people of God, in the years leading up to the birth of the Messiah, are followed, at that birth itself, by an attempted attack from the would-be 'king of the Jews', Herod (Matthew 2)…Jesus himself wins the victory through his death, resurrection and ascension, and is therefore no longer vulnerable to anything the dragon can do.
    The woman, meanwhile - the faithful people of God - remains in danger.   
     
N.T. Wright. Revelation for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.107-109.

      We, the faithful people of God, are in danger! Do you know that? 

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

Spiritual Journal

    The title I heard from Jesus today is: You are in danger! 

    What I got from Jesus today is a warning that since satan rebelled against God's plan for this world, he has been trying all his best to destroy God's faithful people, including Jesus. Jesus won! But we are in great danger! Why? Because we are not his component! And, he is chasing us whenever he can and whatever he can.

    There are so many ways that satan can get us. One of those ways is what Bishop N.T. Wright described in 9: 1-2 about the "bottomless pit" or "Abyss".
Let's take a look at what Bishop N.T. Wright says:

    John's conception of the present creation includes a bottomless pit which, like a black hole in modern astrophysics, is a place of anti-creation, anti-matter, of destruction and chaos…
    Jesus spoke of the way in which all kinds of wickedness - sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, treachery, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, stupidity - come bubbling up out of the depths of the human heart, to the surprise and borrow of would-be pure persons who are doing their best to keep 'clean' by washing their hands (Mark 7.1-23).  That is the black hole inside us all.

N.T. Wright. Revelation for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.86.

     Wow! And please take note what these two passages says:

They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails.  They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.     9:10-11

And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,     11:7

    
     What kind of sin(s) and bad habit, lifestyle that you cannot stop like falling into the bottomless pit, the black hole inside us? You got to stop before it is too late. Why? Because the black angel or even satan himself will be waiting for you there to swallow you alive! This is such a new inspiration from Bishop Wright to me the past few days since I read Wright's interpretation of Revelation 9: 1-2. Because I have seen too many Christians including top Christian leaders cannot stop from something they got to stop and being destroyed of their family, their career and everything.

     You are in danger, do you know that? 

     If you are falling down that bottomless pit and can't stop those things Jesus wants you to stop, you got to stop now before it's too late! Only Jesus can pull you out from that bottomless pit. Only He can help you to stop!  

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us from falling down on that bottomless pit. Pull us out and protect us from the Destroyer's attack. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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This blog:
Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)

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Rev. Nicky Gumbel's daily devotion: Bible in One Year
http://www.htb.org.uk/bioy