PT-1 "Lovers of Self" (2 Timothy 3:2-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/2/2025 9:17 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus:  PT-1 “Lovers of Self”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  2 Timothy 3:2-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God;”

 

            It was the other day that I was working on my Spiritual Diary from 1 John and I wrote some things in it that have to do with what are in these verses.  You can look up that SD from 03-30-2025 as there are some similar things in it that go along with our verses for today.

 

            I begin with a quote from John MacArthur:  “Paul’s description of these seasons of danger is specific.  In this context, men does not refer to mankind in general, or to the unsaved world but to members, especially leaders, in Christ’s church, men, who not only claim the name of Christ but claim to be His ministers, His prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists.  These men are apostate leaders in apostate churches.  As Paul will shortly point out, the hold ‘a form of godliness, [but] have denied its power (v. 5) and they pose an immeasurable threat to the spiritual health, safety, and power of the entire body of Christ.  In these three verses, Paul lists eighteen characteristics of ungodly, apostate men and doubtless women, who have corrupted and will continue to corrupt the church of Christ until He returns.”

 

            Now in that quote we pretty much have the outline of what we will be looking at as we move through these verses.  So the first characteristic is that these men will be lovers of self.  This has to do with the pride of self-love which is the pervasive deadly sin that grips the human soul and is the foundation sin of all the others.  It might be called the sewer out of which the rest of these ugly sins are discharged.

 

            I have seen people throughout my walk with the Lord who are selfish, and also people who are selfless, which is a far better thing to be.  I have to say that my daughter is one of those selfless kinds of believers, and perhaps it gets her into “trouble” because she is always doing things for others.  She became a believer at a very young age, went to a Christian school, then a Christian college and has always been involved in other people’s lives. She is a Spanish teacher at the school where we all go to church; the volleyball coach of that school, the mother of four children, one will graduate this year, the oldest one who was adopted from Kyrgyzstan when he was around a year old.  Then they had three more children after that.  She and her husband are involved in many ministries in our church.  Now my son is a bit different, but I have to say that he is a selfless person too.  I remember not too long ago I ask him to work on the front brakes of my car and he patiently work on it for about 6 hours as we had some problems.  He never got upset but just kept working on that job even when we tried to start it and the battery was dead and so we had to go and get another one.  I have to say that I am blessed with two very great children.  It seems to me that we are all selfish even thought we are now believers but like my children they work on doing the right things.  I’m still working on that and right now the Lord is teaching me about being selfless as I am trying to take care of my wife who has cancer, something that I have mentioned, and ask for prayer for her.  Cancer is a terrible disease and we are attacking it by a change of diet for her as I get up and fix for her fruit smithies and also a combination of apple carrot juice which we read will help in the fight against cancer.  Our lives are difficult at this time, but we know that the Lord is in control and are doing our best to trust him in this storm that we are going through.  Looks like I will begin writing about “lovers of self” in my next SD.

 

Spiritual Meaning for my Life today:  Learning to be content, learning to love, and learning to be selfless, most of all learning to trust the Lord in difficult times of my life.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord as we go through this storm in our lives, and praying that we will bring glory to the Lord as we go through this storm.

 

4/2/2025 9:48 AM   

PT-1 "Answered Prayer" (1 John 5:14-17)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/1/2025 10:12 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                        Focus:  PT-1 “Answered Prayer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  1 John 5:14-17

 

            Message of the verses:  “14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. 16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. 17All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.

 

            I am so happy to get to these verses at just the right time in my life, thankful to God for His gracious timing.  I do not plan to hurry through these verses, but take my time trying to understand all that I can from them.  There was a question that came up in my Sunday school class this past week over the things that I was teaching using the small booklet, Keeping a Pure Mind” written by John MacArthur that I copied parts of it each day and placed onto my Spiritual Diaries a few weeks ago, and the answer to that question I believe is seen in these verses.  This has been a difficult time for our family as I have expressed that my wife has cancer and it was my desire to read and understand from that booklet how I could make sure that the Lord was hearing my prayers for her as I certainly did not want to have any unconfessed sin in my life so that the Lord would not hear me.  A friend of mine, former Pastor and former president of a missionary agency entitle Baptist Mid Mission came up to me after our Sunday service and told me that God does hear my prayers because I am His child.  Not all of this is clear to me and so I am asking the Lord to use these verses to help me better understand this.

 

            We have just talked or written about the truth that a full experience of eternal life is awaiting all true believers when they get to heaven.  However all true believers have not jet entered into heaven as we still live on planet earth.  Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:4 the following “to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, and this gives evidence to what I have just written.  At this time while on earth John MacArthur writes that “they [believers] have access to all of God’s resources through prayer.  Parresia (confidence) literally means ‘freedom of speech.’”  We looked at this when we were covering this verse on January 21^st of this year.  “I can also be translated ‘boldness’ (Acts 4:31), or ‘openness’ (Acts 28:31).  The phrase translated before Him has the sense of ‘in His presence.’  Through Jesus Christ believers have ‘boldness and confidence access’ (Eph. 3:12) to God that enables them to ‘draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that [they] may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need’ (Heb. 4:16).”

 

            I am thankful for this verse from Hebrews, realizing that the Lord will give me grace as I confidently come to His throne of grace that I may receive the mercy that I need to find grace to help in time of need.  This verse at this time in my life speaks volumes to me.

 

Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today:  The Lord is allowing my wife and I to learn from this trouble that we are going through with this unexpected cancer that my wife has, and I can say that it is my desire to have this bring glory to the Lord.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

 

4/1/2025 10:47 PM

PT-3 "Difficult Times" (2 Timothy 3:1)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/01/2025 9:09 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus: PT-4 “Difficult Times”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 3:1

 

            Message of the verses:  “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.”

 

            I begin by writing about the words realize this, which translates a Greek present tense, which, as often noted before that this carries the ideas of constancy and continuity.  Now as long as Timothy was given breath and energy to serve the Lord and the Lord’s people, he was to heed Paul’s warning.  Remember that Paul writes this to Timothy because he was wavering in his ministry, as it was a tough place to minister that he was in, (Ephesus), and so Paul writes to encourage him to continue the fight, to continue to serve the Lord using the gifts that he had been given through the Holy Spirit when Paul laid hands on him in the very early part of his ministry.

 

            Now I want to write about the phrase last days, and MacArthur writes that this can have several meanings.  “In his prophecies about ‘the later days,’ Daniel referred to the entire sweep of history from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar of ancient Babylon to the time when ‘the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed’ (see Dan. 2:28-45).  In Isaiah’s prophecy, the phrase refers to the time just prior to and including Christ’s second coming when ‘the mountains of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it’ (Isa. 2:2; cf. Micah 4:1).”

 

            We continue quoting from MacArthur’s commentary on this subject of the last days.  “The writer of Hebrews declared that ‘God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world’ (Heb. 1:1-2, emphasis added; cf. James 5:3).”  “Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!”   “It seems clear that these last days, which began with the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, are the ones about which Paul is speaking here.  Explaining the miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter made clear that ‘this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:  ‘And it shall be in the last days, ‘God says, ‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all mankind’’ (Acts 2:16-17; cf. Joel 2:28, emphasis added).  The Messiah, Jesus Christ, initiated these last day, the continuation of which was attested by the descent of His Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the birth of the church.”

 

            I have been also studying the first epistle of John and he warned his readers in the early church that ‘it is the last hour,’ which, in this context, is the equivalent of the last days.  “And just as you heard that antichrist I is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour (1 John 2:18).  We are still living in the Messianic time between Christ’s first and second comings, all of which may properly be called the last days.

 

            MacArthur now writes “In those days, Paul says, difficult times will come.  Chelepos (difficult) carries the ideas of perilous or grievous, as some English versions translate the word.  In Matthew 8:28, referring to the Gadarene demoniacs, it is translated ‘violent’ (NASB).  The famous Greek writer Plutarch used the term to describe an ugly, infected, and dangerous wound.

 

            “Times dos not translate chronos, which, as one would guess, indicates chronological time, but rather kairos, which refers to periods of time, to seasons, epochs, or eras.  The plural times may indicate that epochs of varying degrees of danger and difficulty the church would experience throughout its history.  As Paul makes clear a few verses later, these perilous times will come more and more frequent and intense, whereas the intervening periods of relative tranquility will become less frequent and peaceful, as the return of Christ nears.”

 

            All one has to do is look around the world we are living in to see that “tranquility”  has no pretty much died out and for that I hope that the Lord Jesus Christ will soon come to take His Church to heaven with Him in what is called “The Rapture of the Church.”

 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Looking around at the different wars that are going on I can truly say that to me they picture the events that will actually be what the Bible calls the Tribulation Period, a period that will last for seven years, the first three and a half will be relatively quiet, but the last three and a half years will be the worst time for ever to be living on this earth, and the Lord says  that if He does not cut them short that no life would be left on planet earth.  However just when things are getting their worst the Lord will return to planet earth, stop the war of Armageddon and redo the earth separate the evil (goats) from the good (sheep) and then the last 1000 years of history will begin with the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on His Throne in Jerusalem.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To remember in the troubles that my wife is going through, and me right along side of her, that the Lord is in control.

 

4/1/2025 9:49 AM

 

           

PT-2 "Eternal Life" (1 John 5:13)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2025 9:11 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-2 “Eternal Life”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  1 John 5:13

 

            Message of the verse:  “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

 

            I have to admit that I really thought that this verse would only take one SD to finish, but I have to do things in my Spiritual Diaries that I believe the Lord is guiding me to write, especially when it comes to the end times sections that come to mind when I am studying a passage.

 

            John MacArthur writes “As has been clear throughout, the blessings of salvation and assurance are only for those who believe in the name of the Son of God (cf. the discussion of 3:23 in chapter 13 of this volume).”  My Spiritual Diaries from chapter 13 of MacArthur’s commentary begin on 1-23-2025 to 1-31-2025).  “God has guaranteed these blessings to Christians by giving them the Holy Spirit as a pledge (Eph. 1:14).”  “14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”  “John’s uncompromising presentation of the truth in absolute, unqualified terms, the relentless attacks of the false teachers, and the departure of some of the false believers (2:19) had shaken his readers.  The apostle assured them that if they passed the doctrinal and practical tests, they could know for certain that they had eternal life. 

 

            “In its most basic sense, eternal life is liven forever with God in heaven (Matt. 25:46; Mark 10:30).  But as noted in the discussion 5:11 in the previous chapter of this volume, the term does not refer primarily to duration of life, but to quality of life.  Eternal life is to know Jesus Christ (John 17:3), who Himself is eternal life (1 John 5:20), and to share in His life.  It is a present possession, not merely a future hope (John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; 10:28; 1 John 3:15), though it is not fully manifested in this life.  But there will come a day in the future when the eternal life believers already possess will no longer be incarcerate in their sinful, fallen flesh. On that glorious day, they will experience their “adoption as sons, the redemption of [the] body’ (Rom. 8:23; cf. Phil. 3:21; 1 John 3:2).  Then the glory of eternal life—the power of the Trinity that works within them (cf. Eph. 3:16-19)—will shine through them unclouded by their mortal bodies.”

 

            All I can say that this has begun in my life on the 23^rd day of January in the year of our Lord 1974, and for my wife it was sometime in April of 1974, and praise the Lord my two adult children became believers when they were very young, and not all of my seven grandchildren are believers, and I have to say that there is no greater feeling than that. 

 

            Once again I am asking for worldwide prayer for wife as we have found out that she now has cancer and is to be operated on at the end of April.  My prayer is that God will be glorified through this as we fight this battle, praying for wisdom to win this battle with her cancer.

 

3/31/2025 9:32 PM

 

 

PT-3 "Difficult Times" (2 Timothy 3:1)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2025 9:06 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus: PT-3 “Difficult Times”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 3:1

 

            Message of the verses:  “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.”

 

            I have mentioned that when Paul is writing about “last days” that he is writing about the church age, and all one has to do is look at the history of the church to see many difficult days have happened.  I believe by looking at the second and third chapters of the book of Revelation where we find that the Lord is Himself writing to seven churches that these churches are in the order of things that go on during the church age, and if you look at the last church He writes to we see the following:  “14 "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: 15 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. 16 ‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit (vomit) you out of My mouth. 17 ‘Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, 18  I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19 ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. 20 ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. 21 ‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’’”  There are two churches that the Lord has nothing good to say about them, and this is the second one.  Notice ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.  We see from this verse that Jesus is outside of this church.  If you have ever seen the picture of Jesus knocking at the door of this church you will notice that there is no door handle in the picture which signifies that those on the inside of the church have to let the Lord in.  I truly believe that we are and have been in the age of the Laodicean church for most of if not all of my life time, and Friday of this week I will turn 78 years old. 

 

            In this verse Paul is telling Timothy about difficult times and a couple of weeks ago we got the news that my wife of going on 52 years has cancer, and yes I can understand about difficult times, but I do know that the Lord is in charge and it is our desire that the Lord will receive glory from this difficult time in our lives.  I covet your prayers for my wife Sandy and for myself as we go through this difficult time in our lives.

 

            I will not quote a couple of paragraphs from John MacArthur’s commentary on this verse and I have to say that he has written a lot of information on this short verse.

           

            “Near the end of His ministry, Jesus expanded the warning cited above from Matthew 7.  ‘Many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many,’ he said.  ‘And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold….For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect’ (Matt. 24:11-12, 24).”  Now because chapter 24 of Matthew is about the tribulation period seen in Revelation chapters 6-19 I have to believe that these false prophets will come about in that time period, but in our world today there are many false prophets and false churches, and false religions found, so application to these verses are seen in our time period too. 

 

            “Similar warnings are given in the epistles.  Peter warned that ‘false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.  And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned’ (2 Peter 2:1-2).  John warned, ‘Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; for this we know that it is the last hour.  They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us’ (1 John 2:18-19).  Jude warned that ‘certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (Jude 4).’”

 

            MacArthur then goes on to say something that I wrote about earlier:  “Those warnings were about the contemporary as well as the future condition of the church.  The dangers that plagued the New Testament church would continue and become worst throughout the church age, as ‘evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived’ (2 Tim. 3:13)

 

            “The twin dangers are the closely related evils of ungodly teaching and ungodly living, of false doctrine and sinful lifestyle.  As Jesus pointed out in the quotation above from Matthew 24:11-12, as false prophets will arise,…lawlessness is increased,’ and as Jeremiah predicted, ‘the committing of adultery and walking in falsehood’ are companion evils (Jer. 23:14).  Those enemies of God and of God’s people originated at the Fall and will continue to thrive until the Lord returns and takes back the world for Himself.  In the meanwhile, the alliance of false teaching and ungodly living will continue to afflict the church.

 

            “The conjunction but indicates a change of direction, from the admonition to the godly ‘vessel for honor,’ one characterized by kindness, patience, and gentleness (2:21-25), to the admonition to be responsible and fearless guardian of God’s people, protecting them from false doctrine and immoral living.”

 

Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today:  There are many advantages of living in the 21^st century, but because of the great technological advantages much evil can come about too.  The best cure for this is to be insulated with the Word of God in my heart to counter the things that are going on around me.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  “Thy Word I have hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.

 

3/31/2025 9:45 AM  

PT-1 "Eternal Life" (1 John 5:13)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2025 10:35 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                               Focus:  PT-1 “Eternal Life”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  1 John 5:13

 

            Message of the verse:  “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

 

            I have to say in the beginning of this SD that 1 John 5:13 is one of my very favorite verses in all of the Word of God.  The highlighted portion of the verse is what makes it so very special.

 

            Now the phrase these things sweeps backward to encompass the entire letter, as is evident from several considerations.  The first one, the shift from the second person in verse 12 (“He who has the Son…he who does not have the Son…”) to the first person (These things I have written…) and this suggests that verse 13 does not merely continue the flow of thought from the previous verse.  Now second, in 1:4 John announced his purpose in writing:  (“These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete”), now in verse 13 he looks back on what he had written.  Together, the two verses state John’s purpose in writing, since it is assurance of eternal life that produces fullness of joy as seen in 1 John 1:4.  Now John 20:31 says “these things have been written so that believing you may have life in His name.”  Since that verse unquestionably refers back to the entire gospel of John, the parallel expression found in 1 John 5:13 most likely refers back to the entire epistle.  Now it is my belief from my studying of the Bible that all of John’s letters were written about the same time in history that would be in the A.D. 90’s.  Now remember when the Lord was restoring Peter in the 21^st chapter of John that he told Peter how he was going to die for the cause of Christ, and would be by crucifixion, and the story that I heard about that event was that Peter’s wife was crucified before Peter, and Peter had to watch that event.  Then Peter was crucified upside down because he did not want to be crucified like his Lord was.  During that time in the 21^st chapter of John we read:  18 "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go." 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, "Follow Me!" 20 Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, "Lord, who is the one who betrays You?" 21 So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, "Lord, and what about this man?" 22 Jesus said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!" 23 Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" 24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. 25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.”  These are the last verses found in the gospel of John, so take your time and read over them as they will show what I have been writing about. 

            It looks like that I will finish this section in my next SD.

 

3/30/2025 10:58 PM

PT-2 "Difficult Times" (2 Tim. 3:1)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2025 8:12 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus: PT-2 “Difficult Times”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 3:1

 

            Message of the verses:  “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.”

 

            This is the second time that Paul has written a prediction to Timothy and the first time was in his first letter to him in which he gives a similar warning, “The Spirit explicity says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).

 

            Now that problem was not new to God’s people, as Jeremiah wrote, “The Lord said to me, ‘The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name.  I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision divination, futility and the deception of their own minds’” (Jer. 14:14).  Then later he relates that “among the prophets of Jerusalem I (the Lord) have seen a horrible thing:  The committing of adultery and walking in falsehood: and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one has turned back from his wickedness.  All of them have become to Me like Sodom, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah” (Jer. 23:14)  The prophet then warned, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you.  They are leading you into futility; they speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord” (v. 16).

 

            MacArthur writes “The most serious and lamentable aspect of such rejection of God and His Word is that the danger comes from within the church.  As noted several times, near the end of his third missionary journey Paul sent for the Ephesian elders to meet with him at Miletus.  Pouring out his heart to them, he warned, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock: and from among your disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30), emphasis added).

 

            “Although our Lord assures us, ‘I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it’ (Matt. 16:18), He did not promise that His people would be free from spiritual danger and harm.  Much to the contrary.  Near the beginning of His ministry, in the Sermon on the Mount, He warned, ‘Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s cloghint but inwardly are ravenous wolves’ (Matt. 7:15).  In the guise of spiritual shepherds and prophets, who were noted for wearing wool garments, they devour and destroy the very ones they profess to lead and protect.  Zechariah spoke of such men as those who ‘put on a hairy robe in order to deceive’ (Zech. 13:4).  Eariler in His revelation to that prophet, the Lord declared, ‘For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will devour the herd who leaves the flock!  A sword will be on his arm and on his right eye His arm will be totally withered, and his right eye will blind’ (11:16-17).”

            Lord willing more next SD.

 

3/30/2025 8:36 AM