Revelation 6:3 (KJV) Come and See

Revelation 6:3
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

As the seals are opened judgments happen. The horse riders are first four seals are not good news for the people of earth. There is war, and death and famine and hell, all as a direct result of these judgments.

Yet the Apostle is urged “Come and see.”

The Christian is not to dread the future, even that of the lost. We cannot serve the lost if we remain blind to their eventual fate.

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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Revelation 6:3 (KJV) Come and See

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Revelation 5:4-6 (KJV) How To Know The Word of God

Revelation 5:4-6 (KJV)
And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

The thing that men cannot open, Christ reveals.

The picture here is of a closed book. It is perfectly sealed. No man is worthy and able to open the seals and John is broken over it. Though we know, because we have read ahead, that the seals bring judgment on the earth, we also know that God’s plan is righteous and holy and that mankind needs to know it.

There is no need to weep.

Though no man is worthy, the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ is. The way to know the Word of God and through it the plan of God is to know Christ:

• As the One slain to redeem you
• As the Everlasting God as prophesied in the Old Testament and
• As the lion of the tribe of Judah coming soon to receive you into heaven.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Revelation 5:4-6 (KJV) How To Know The Word of God

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Revelation 4:2 (KJV) A Throne Was Set In Heaven

Revelation 4:2 (KJV)
And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

“A throne was set in heaven.”

Such a simple phrase but it has meaning for me today.

• It is intentional
• It is purposeful
• It is decisive

Where God is, where He sits and rules, and where He intends to bring the believers are all things of intention, purpose and decisiveness.

Nothing About God’s plan for humanity, the ages or our eventual outcome is accidental or happenstance.

There is comfort and assurance in knowing that God is intentional in the details of His plan and will.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Revelation 4:2 (KJV) A Throne Was Set In Heaven

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Revelation 3:19 (KJV) All Is Not Lost

Revelation 3:19 (KJV)
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 

It is significant that this verse is given specifically to the angel of the church of Laodicea.

Jesus says nothing positive to this church. He has no kind word, no exception clause. There is nowhere in the letter to the church in Laodicea that Jesus says “nevertheless, this is right in your church.” To the contrary, He says they are “wretched and miserable” and that He would “spue [them] out of [His] mouth.”

You would think that all is lost for them, that they are:

• Reprobate 
• Past His caring and 
• Hopeless of His salvation

Not so.

• He loves them
• He chastens them and
• He calls them to repentance

Biblically there is such a one as reprobate, past opportunity for salvation, but we do not know who they are and they are probably not who we think they are.

If a soul has a heart to repent, they can rest assured that Christ loves them and will receive them.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Revelation 3:19 (KJV) All Is Not Lost

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Revelation 2:9 (KJV) It Is Not Sin Because He Is God

Revelation 2:9 (KJV)
I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. 

There is a dominant phrase in Revelation chapters 2-3, “I know.”It is a mark of the deity of Christ that He is all knowing, of those things that go on in the churches. We would do well to consider that. These churches are not our own. They belong to our Lord and we will give account of our part in them one day.

There is, even more so, a dominant word in these chapters, “I.”Jesus is:

• In the midst of the churches, 
• Aware of the churches and 
• Active in the churches. 

While the subjects of these letters are the churches, the focus is the Lord.

When Lucifer lifted himself in pride he said, “I will be like the most high” and proceeded to give a litany of “I’s.”Whenever we become proud, either through conceit or poor mouthing, “I” becomes the favorite word in our vocabulary. And it’s always sinful.

But here is Jesus Christ flooding these two chapters and the seven letters contained in them with “I.” It’s no sin when He does it because He is God. His repeated use of the term is proof of and consistent with His deity.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Revelation 2:9 (KJV) It Is Not Sin Because He Is God

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Ezekiel 30:26 (KJV) The Curse of King Tut?

Ezekiel 30:26 (KJV)
And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

Years ago I read an article that said DNA testing had discovered that the people of the British Isles were more closely related to the mummies of Egypt than the current population of Egypt.[1] I do not recall if the article gave an explanation but I do recall that in my head I imagined it referencing the “Fair Haired Anglo’s” on England. I suppose, upon further consideration that might not be the case.

Perhaps the article was a reference to the large number of Middle Eastern people now living in the U.K.

Maybe the reason for the Egyptian DNA has to do with Roman immigration to England after the Romans had so famously interacted with Egyptians.

But perhaps it is in fulfillment to this judgment of God and others like it in the Bible.

Could God have scattered the Egyptians so dramatically that the Land of the Nile was left available for others to settle and claim as their own?

[1](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2022313/Up-70-British-men-related-Egyptian-Pharaoh-Tutankhamun.html)

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Ezekiel 30:26 (KJV) The Curse of King Tut?

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Ezekiel 28:19 (KJV) They Could Have Been

Ezekiel 28:19 (KJV)
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

There are at least three ways to understand verses 11-19:

• Literally- as a judgment against the king of Tyre
• Figuratively-as a judgment against spiritual Babylon of the future 
• Prophetically- as a judgment against Satan

Though there are likely applications for all three in the passage I believe the most compelling is of Satan. It is difficult to understand the description as of anyone but the Devil.

That said, the final judgment fascinates my attention today. We know that Satan, as is true of every living soul, never ceases to exist. Rather he suffers in the blackness and torments of the Lake of Fire forever.

Eternal torments of the lost are horrific to say the least. One description of that horror is forever being as not being anymore. The lost in hell will always know that they could have been, but they aren’t.

And it is all because they rejected Jesus Christ.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Ezekiel 28:19 (KJV) They Could Have Been

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Ezekiel 26:2-3 (KJV) The Earmark of Devilishness

Ezekiel 26:2-3 (KJV)
Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.

We often talk about the sin of envy when a neighbor seems to be blessed and we are not. Something in us cries out, “That’s not fair. I wanted that. I needed that. I asked for that. I deserved that. Why did “so and so” get it and not me?”

Honestly, if we have been blessed in some remarkable way, we would be wise to announce that blessing carefully lest it appear to be bragging.

This text represents the opposite sin, that of rejoicing when a neighbor experiences loss.

Tyrus and Jerusalem were neighbors. They were competitors in sea trade but they had been in partnership under kings David and Solomon. Now Jerusalem had been devastated and all Tyrus could think to do was see her own advantage in it.

There is a downward spiral of doom God describes in this and the following chapters:

• Chapter 26 – the sin of selfishness 
• Chapter 27- the sin of pride
• Chapter 28- the giving over to Satan

Generosity, selflessness, and compassion for others in crisis are the earmarks of godliness. Selfishness is the earmark of devilishness.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Ezekiel 26:2-3 (KJV) The Earmark of Devilishness

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Ezekiel 24:18-19 (KJV) Still, We Serve the Lord

Ezekiel 24:18-19 (KJV)
So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so? 

The reader finds himself as befuddled by this passage as the original audience must have. Ezekiel’s wife died.

• His heart must have shattered
• His loneliness must have exploded 
• His grief must have risen

But God had called him and his work must be done. “Tell us what these things are…?” the audience asked him.

Ezekiel explained that he was set as an example for the people. They would suffer and would not be afforded opportunity to grieve. They would instead, “pine away for their iniquities.“

So the preacher, yea every serious Christian today, serves as one seeking to comfort and teach the grieving while he himself is grieving. We are not sinless or perfected in any sense of the word. We are broken, hurting and fully aware of our failures.

Still, we serve the Lord.

We are able to do so understanding three things:

• We are instructed to serve
• We are forgiven in Christ
• We will be made whole in eternity 

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Ezekiel 24:18-19 (KJV) Still, We Serve the Lord

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1 John 5:16-17 (KJV) Pray For Sinners

1 John 5:16-17 (KJV)

If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.

All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.

There is no such thing as a mortal sin, one that, should a person commit it, they cannot be saved or if they are Christian, must mean they lose their salvation.

There is, an unpardonable sin, which is simply refusing the witness of the Holy Spirit and not trusting Christ as Savior. It is fruitless and theologically backward to pray for God to extend grace to the person who rejects the grace of God in Christ.

This sin unto death may include this unpardonable sin but also likely includes any of those sins that will inevitably lead to death.

There are sins that so eat the body with disease that the end will surely be death.

We may pray for peace of mind and strength to endure the pain, but prayer for healing in most of these cases would be answered in the negative.

There are sins that so violate the human contract that governments are forced to hand down a death sentence.

We may pray for the salvation of the offender. We may pray for his growth in spiritual grace prior to the execution of the sentence. But it would be foolish as a member of a civilized society to pray that the sentence of death never be carried out upon such offenders.

The passage is not meant to keep us from praying but to encourage us to pray. There is only this one exception of a sin unto death that cannot possibly be answered affirmatively and that one exception may happen less frequently than we imagine. Therefore pray for sinners.

• Pray for their salvation.
• Pray for their repentance.
• Pray for their restoration.

And while you pray - keep yourselves from evil.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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1 John 5:16-17 (KJV) Pray For Sinners

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1 John 4:17-19 (KJV) Perfect Love

1 John 4:17-19 (KJV)
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.We love him, because he first loved us.

The love for Christ, that is an evidence of salvation, is a love that drives away the fear of judgment before God. It is a love that emboldens us to come freely and often to the throne grace. It is a love that grows our relationship with God as we walk with God.

Those who know and love the Lord, who are saved, are sure of their salvation. Those who are without this love live under the doom of judgment. They are tormented with:

• Fear of the wrath of God, of 
• Judgment upon this world, with 
• Judgment upon themselves. 

They live tormented with the dread of death and eternity in hell.

Perfect love, that love that results because He first loved us, casts out this fear of judgment.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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1 John 4:17-19 (KJV) Perfect Love

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1 John 3:1-2 (KJV) Why The World Misunderstands Christians

1 John 3:1-2 (KJV)
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

The world today thinks it knows Christians.
It has two thousand years of observation of every sort of Christian idea and every sort of Christian response to every sort of worldly circumstance.

They have witnessed what they consider to be the good in Christianity (and have deemed it, for the most part, irrelevant) and they have witnessed what they know to be the worst of Christianity (and focus primarily on that).

The world today believes it knows Christianity better than Christians know Christianity.
But what the world has never known, and can therefore never know about the Christian, is God.

I would suggest that, based on 1 John 3:2, it is true that Christians do not know Christianity very well. There are things that are ethereal about the faith, things that only God knows, and things that we, as believers, learn piece by piece.

We only know two things well:

• That when He shall appear we shall be like Him
• That we should keep ourselves from sin

The rest of it is progressive.

And we do know God.

• His witness in our spirit, 
• His presence in our consciousness, 
• His convicting work consciences, 

convinces us that He is and that we have a real and vital relationship with Him.

The world can never understand the Christian psyche because it does not know the God who informs it.

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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1 John 3:1-2 (KJV) Why The World Misunderstands Christians

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1 John 2:14 (KJV) Yea, Hath God Said?

1 John 2:14 (KJV)
I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

There is such a rapid change from “I write” in the two previous verses to “I have written” that it almost startles. It must have meaning and purpose and yet almost all writers either ignore it altogether or gloss over it.

The most common way the commentaries ignore any meaningful understanding of the change is to attempt a correction of it. It amazes me how easily we slip into the Devil’s trap, “Yea, hath God said?”

While I confess that the reason for the change of tense is not absolutely clear, a simple explanation is that it is a reference to the Apostle’s previous work, the Gospel he wrote earlier.

• “I write” in this epistle
• “I have written” in the Gospel

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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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1 John 2:14 (KJV) Yea, Hath God Said?

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1 John 1:5 (KJV) The Moral Core of the Believer

1 John 1:5 (KJV)
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

People, who like to pretend that they are smarter than others, claim that faith in God is superstitious and unreasonable. They insist upon this even though some of the world’s most intelligent people, historically and currently, are believers. Those who founded the United States, for example, were almost to a man, believers in Christ. They were of different denominations and some of them would not have claimed to be born again, but they almost all accepted that there is a Supreme Deity governing in the affairs of men. They also believed that this belief is essential to good citizenship.

There is no question that 1 John begins with a position of faith. It is written to those who accept the testimony of the Apostles and their account of life with Jesus Christ.

Notice the message of John. When once we establish that we accept his testimony, He says his message is plain, “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” That’s the foundational principle of faith. From there it moves to what the founders of the United States saw, that faith in this principle of faith moves men to morality.

There are five “ifs” that follow 1 John 1:5, each of them predicated upon the truth of verse 5. Each one pointing to the moral core of the believer:

• That the believer does not “fellowship” with darkness 
• That the believer actively “fellowships” with other believers
• That the believer is honest with his own sin
• That the believer trusts God alone to deal with that sin
• That the believer places the truth of the Word of God above his own reason

To my readers:
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For this and more than 3800 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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1 John 1:5 (KJV) The Moral Core of the Believer

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.