SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/30/2015
6:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Creative Power of the Word
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 1:3
Message of the
verse: “3 All things came into being
through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into
being.”
Since it has been a little while since we looked at the
end of John MacArthur’s outline for this first section of John, verses 1-5 I
want to repeat what he wrote: “From the
first five verses of John’s gospel prologue flow three evidences of the deity
of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ: His
preexistence, His creative power, and His self-existence.” We took a couple of days looking at His
preexistence, and now we want to look at His creative power, which is a much
shorter section from John 1:3.
First I want to include a short section from the pen of
Warren Wiersbe on his comments from John 1:3: “There is certainly a parallel between John
1:1 and Genesis 1:1, the ‘new creation’ and the ‘old creation.’ God created the worlds through His Word: “And God said, ‘Let there be…’ /’For He spoke,
and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast’ (Ps. 33:9). God created all things through Jesus Christ
(Col. 1:16, which means that Jesus is not a created being. He is eternal God.
‘The verb was made
is perfect tense in the Greek, which means a ‘completed act.’ Creation is finished. It is not a process still going on, even
though God is certainly at work in His creation (John 5:17). Creation is not a process; it is a finished
product.” I suppose that those who
believe in the religion of evolution, yes it is a religion and not a science,
have problems with this statements from Dr. Wiersbe and many others like Ken
Ham who has spent his whole life defending Genesis 1-11.
John 1:3 has both a positive and negative statement
showing the profound truth in a very clear language that the “Word” created
everything that was created. God the
Father gave this job to His Son, which is the job of creation.
Let
us look at a couple of verses:
Colossians 1:16 “For
by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things have been created
through Him and for Him.” Next
Hebrews 1:2 “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.” Next
we will look at Ephesians 3:9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of
the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who
created all things by Jesus Christ (KJV).”
We can see two truths from this verse, well two that we
will look at to show that Jesus Christ, the Word is truly God. First a created being cannot create the
world. Second, and only the eternal God is uncreated. MacArthur writes “The Greek text emphasizes
the distinction between the uncreated Word and His creation, since a different
verb is used here than the one used in verses 1 and 2. As noted in the previous point, John used a
form of the verb eimi (‘to be’),
which denotes a state of being, to describe the Word in verses 1 and 2; here,
speaking of the creation of the universe, he used a form of the verb ginomai (‘came into being’). That Jesus is the Creator also verifies His
deity, because God is portrayed through the Bible as the Creator (Gen. 1:1; Ps.
102:25; Isa. 40:28; 42:5; 45:18; Mark 12:19; Rom. 1:2 5; Eph. 3:9; Rev. 4:11).”
There is a false belief called “Gnosticism” which teaches
that all matter is evil and since God is good He could not have created
something that was evil. Well He did not
create something that was evil for after each day of creation He stated that it
was good and after the sixth day when man was created He stated it was “very
good.”
We have to agree that the world that God created is much
different now than when He finished with His creation and that is because of
the curse that came with sin. We know
that the flood that was a worldwide flood caused this world to be much
different than when first created.
Romans 8:19-21 has something to say about all of this: “19 For the anxious longing of the creation
waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was
subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the
creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
In our study of Revelation, which we just completed we
learned about the Millennial kingdom which is the coming kingdom of Jesus
Christ as He will rule for 1000 years after the coming Tribulation period. We learned that He will do things to the
earth that will cause it to be similar to what it was before the flood and that
the world and those living on it will be in a totally different environment that
what we have today, both in a physical and spiritual way. Isaiah prophesized about this upcoming
kingdom in both Isaiah 11:6-9 and also in 65:25. “6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And
the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion
and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. 7 Also the cow and
the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat
straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And
the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. 9 They will not hurt or
destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of
the LORD As the waters cover the sea.” “"The
wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox;
and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm in all My
holy mountain," says the LORD.”
A couple of days ago I bought a book by Ken Ham in which
he writes about how the church today believes a lie. I certainly don’t have time to go into all he
writes on this subject, but can state that the lie that many in the church
believes is evolution. In a study that I
led a few years back from a book by John MacArthur entitled “The Battle for the
Beginning” he stated that evolution is impossible, that not even God could
create the world using evolution.
Another lie that those in the church believe has to do with evolution
and that is that there is a gap between verses one and two of Genesis chapter
one, a gap that last millions of years.
Now if Satan can cause many in the church today to believe this lie then
other doctrines from the Word of God can be looked at as lies too. The truth is that God created the world in
six twenty-four hour days and that the earth is no more than 6-7 thousand years
old. Any other thing that is taught is a
lie which comes right from the father of lies.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful for
the Greek language that the New Testament is written in, for the preciseness of
it that we can learn the truths of Scripture because of this language that the
Holy Spirit used to have the authors of the New Testament write with.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to get me through some
stressful things that are up-coming today and on Wednesday.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “The Publican” (Luke 18:13).”
Today’s Bible
question: “The word which came to
Jeremiah from the Lord, told him to go down to whose house?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/30/2015 7:32 AM
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