Today, Monday February 28
Praying for Ukraine Today I began my Pastor’s Chat with a prayer for the dear people of Ukraine! They are courageously defending their country against an invasion from a foreign superpower. They desperately need our prayers and our support. We are being told there will be several million refugees that will flood into Western Europe. We want to help them. We already have partners on the ground in Slovakia which borders Ukraine. We are preparing to assist them with funds to help these precious displaced refugees.
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Revelation 3:4-6 “You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." '
Today we also addressed the phrase, “I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life…”. Does this mean that someone who is saved can lose their salvation one day? I don't think so. It would appear that God's "Book of Life" contains the names of all the living, the wicked as well as the righteous (Ps. 69:28). Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 suggest that the names of the saved are written in the book from the foundation of the world—that is, before they had done anything good or bad. By God's grace, they have been chosen in Christ before the beginning of time (Eph. 1:4; see also Matt. 25:34).
Jesus told His disciples to rejoice because their names were "written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). The Greek verb is in the perfect tense, which means it can be translated "your names have been written in heaven and are on permanent record up there." (Kenneth Wuest in his Expanded Translation). It is not likely that Jesus would contradict Himself in this important matter!
If the names of believers (the elect) are written from the foundation of the world, and if God knows all things, why would He enter the name of somebody who would one day fall and have to be removed from the book? We are enrolled in heaven because we have been born again (Heb. 12:23), and no matter how disobedient a child may be, he or she cannot be "unborn."
As unbelievers die, their names are removed from the book; thus, at the final judgment, the book contains only the names of believers (Rev. 20:12-15). It then becomes "the Lamb's Book of Life" (Rev. 21:27), because only those saved by the Lord Jesus Christ have their names in it. All the others have been blotted out, something God would never do for any true child of God (see Ex. 32:32; Rom. 9:3). It is a book of life, and lost sinners are dead (Eph. 2:1).
The warning here is that we not grow comfortable in our churches, lest we find ourselves slowly dying. The encouragement is that no church is beyond hope as long as there is a remnant in it, willing to strengthen the things that remain.
God bless!
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