Christ's Impeccable Control of Circumstances (John 4:27)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/13/2016 9:47 AM

My Worship Time                                      Focus:  Christ’s Impeccable Control of Circumstances

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  John 4:27

Message of the verses:  “27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why do You speak with her?’”

We must begin with another Greek lesson from John MacArthur:  “The Greek phrase epi touto (‘at this point;’ or ‘at that very moment’) captures Jesus’ complete mastery of the situation.  The disciples came back from buying food in Sychar (v. 8) at the exact moment Jesus revealed His messiahship to the Samaritan woman.  Had they returned earlier, they would have interrupted the conversation before it reached its dramatic conclusion; hand they returned later, they would have missed hearing Jesus’ declaration.  Divine providence was at work.”

We read about the disciples being amazed that Jesus was speaking to a woman, and the fact that she was Samaritan made them all the more surprised.  The problem with the disciples was they were thinking like the Pharisees and not like Jesus.  The Pharisees thought that it was a waste of time talking to a woman and even worse than that they thought they could be spending their time studying the Torah instead of wasting their time talking to a woman.  We have gone over why the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans in and earlier SD.  What would His disciples thought if they would have known that Jesus was telling this Samaritan woman that He was the Messiah?  However we have to give His disciples credit by not saying anything to the Lord about who it was He was talking to.  MacArthur adds “They (the disciples) had already learned that Jesus was not bound by Jewish expectations, traditions, and prejudices, and that He had good reasons for doing what He did.”

We have touched on the subject of preaching the gospel to the Samaritans in an early SD, and learned that the gospel would be preached to the children of Israel first, which it was and would be after the death, resurrection, and assertion of Jesus, and so His disciples were learning a valuable lesson that would continue to be learned in later years, that is that the gospel was not just for the Jews, but for the whole world.  One of the things that His disciples must learn was something that we are not sure that the prophet Jonah ever did learn, and that is to get rid of his prejudices that he had against anyone who was not Jewish.

What we are talking about in this SD is how Jesus controlled the situation so that He could give out the truth of the gospel to this woman and as mentioned this was Divine Providence.  Another way of explaining this is something we call having a divine appointment, and in my years of being a believer I have had a few of these so that the time was just perfect for me to talk to someone about the Lord. 

John MacArthur writes “History is under God’s absolute control, prewritten in eternity past.  Paul told the pagan philosophers in Athens that God determined the appointed times of every nation (Acts 17:26; cf. 1:7).  Accordingly, Jesus Himself always acted according to the Father’s timetable.  At the wedding in Cana He told His mother, ‘My hour has not yet come’ (2:4).  In 7:6 He said to His skeptical brothers, ‘My time is not yet here’ (cf. v. 8).  Verse 30 of that same chapter records that He enemies ‘were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come’(cf. 8:20).  John prefaced his account of the Upper Room Discourse by noting that Jesus knew ‘that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father’ (13:1).  The Lord began His High Priestly Prayer with the words, ‘Father, the Hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You’ (17:1).”

We see that the deity of Jesus is seen in this situation with this woman and I suppose that it is easier for us to say that we understand this situation because Jesus was there on earth controlling all the events that would happen in His life, however it is not as easy for us to understand and believe that He is controlling all the things in our lives.  We seem to always hear that we have a free will, to do what we want to do, and this makes all of this divine providence a bit harder to understand.  We have been tackling some difficult things in our study of the gospel of John, and hopefully we will come out of this study better understanding some of these difficult truths, or at least believe them and understand that we have to live by faith.  When I have a difficult time in understand things from the Word of God I go to a verse in the OT that gives me some perspective:  ““The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions (Deut. 29:29 NLT).”

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Continue to trust that the Lord controls my life and although I don’t understand all that is going on like Habakkuk learned “17  Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, 18  Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. 19 The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places (Hab. 3:17-19a).”

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will continue to teach me from His Word.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “120” (Deuteronomy 34:7).

Today’s Bible question:  “How much money did the poor widow give to the treasury?”

Answer in our next SD.

2/13/2016 10:37 AM