SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/21/2016
9:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Responding
to The Divine Offer of Salvation
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 3:11-21
Message of
the verses: “11 “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of
what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. 12 “If I
told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell
you heavenly things? 13 "No one has
ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. 14 "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have
eternal life. 16 “For God
so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 “For God did not send
the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved
through Him. 18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already,
because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved
the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone
who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be
exposed. 21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that
his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."”
The focus that is listed in this SD is actually the
title of John MacArthur’s 9th chapter, the chapter that we are now
looking at and what we will look at today is actually the second introduction
to this section of verses, and I promise it will not nearly be as long as
yesterday’s SD, but as stated in that SD it was necessary to understand what we
went over.
In these last two centuries we have seen great
progress in living conditions, and also the way jobs are done, and because of
this progress man lives longer than he did before, and yet as we do live longer
we still face the same problem that Adam and Eve had after the fall and that
problem is having a right relationship with the Lord our Creator and God. All of our technology has not solved this,
the greatest of our problems. Paul
writes in Romans 3:10 “as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT
EVEN ONE.” He writes later in verse 23 “for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” now pay close attention to
the little word “all” and think about its meaning. When Paul says all have sinned, he leaves no
one out. Roman 5:8 says “But God demonstrates His own
love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Now this verse gives us hope, but we still
have the words “we were yet sinners” stating once again that all have sinned,
making us all sinners. We are sinners
before a holy God who is the Righteous Judge “God is a righteous judge, And a
God who has indignation every day (Ps. 7:11).”
“in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all
who have loved His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8).”
God the righteous Judge will condemn them to eternal punishment in hell “11
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence
earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the
dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were
opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead
were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their
deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades
gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them
according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of
fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was
not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire
(Rev. 20:11-15).” The reason for this is
the violation of His holy Law “For as many as are of the works of the Law are
under a curse; for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE
BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.’ (Gal. 3:10).”
John MacArthur writes “Ever since Adam’s
disobedience plunged the human race into sin (Rom. 5:12-21), Satan has
ceaselessly promoted the lie that people can come to God on their own
terms. That lie, embraced by all who
follow the broad way that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13), is at the heart of
every false religion. But the Bible is
clear that unregenerate people cannot save themselves; their condition is
utterly hopeless, humanly speaking (Matt. 19:25-26). They are ‘dead in [their] trespasses and sins’
(Eph. 2:1); unable to accept or understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14)
because ‘the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that
they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:4;
cf. Eph. 4:18). They are enemies of God
(Rom. 5:10; James 4:4); alienated from Him (Eph. 2:19; Col. 1:21; cf. Ps.
58:3); disobedient to Him (Eph. 2:2; Col. 3:6; Titus 3:3; cf. Job. 21:15);
ignorant of Him (Pss. 10:4; 14:1; 53:1; 2 Thess. 1:8; cf. Job 8:13); hostile to
Him (Rom. 8:7; Col. 1:21); unloving toward Him (2 Tim. 3:4); haters of Him (Ps.
81:15; Rom. 1:30); rebellious toward Him (Ps. 5:10; 1 Tim. 1:9); and subject to
His wrath (John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; Eph. 5:6).
They are on the path to destruction (Matt. 7:12; Phil. 3:19) because
they hate the light of spiritual truth (John 3:20) and hence are blind to it
(Matt. 12:26; Col. 1:13) and ‘by nature children of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3). Thus, they are slaves to sin (John 8:34; Rom.
6:17, 20) and corruption (2 Peter 2:19), vessels of wrath prepared for
destruction’ (Rom. 9:22).” Now as you
look over all of these verses you can see what the condition of mankind is in,
and as stated in this paragraph man can do nothing on his own to care for this,
his greatest need.
As we look at Nicodemus who was a man who believed
in the lie that Satan promotes he thought that he was ok with his relationship
with God, but will latter find out he was not, but as we look at verse eleven we
can see that at this point in his life he did not accept the testimony of our
Lord who was talking to him about salvation.
Let us look at 2 Cor. 5:17 to show us that only the
radical transformation that is wrought by God in regeneration can impart
spiritual life to the spiritually dead: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the
old things passed away;
behold, new things have
come.” “For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the
past is finished and gone, everything
has become fresh and new (Phillips).”
Nicodemus missed the point of salvation that Jesus
was telling him about, and the sad part is that salvation is taught in the OT
which Nicodemus was very familiar with.
I am sure that he read passages like Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36-37, and I
am sure that he read about the conversion of Abraham who it is written of him “6 Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned
it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).”
Abraham did nothing to gain salvation, but once he believed in the Lord
it was counted to him as righteousness.
John MacArthur previews this section by writing “In
this discourse on the meaning of salvation, Jesus addressed the problem of
unbelief, provided the answer for unbelief, and warned of the results of
unbelief.” Lord willing we will begin to
look at “The Problem of Unbelief” in our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: A person has to realize that he is dead in
his sins which is the bad news, before he can accept the good news of
salvation.
My Steps of
Faith for Today: Be prepared to tell
others about Christ and how He can save them as the Lord brings people onto my
path.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Hannah” (1 Samuel 1:13-14).
Today’s Bible question: “What Old Testament book and chapter teach on
tithing?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/21/2016 10:21 AM
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