SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/15/2016 11:33 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Introduction to John 5:30-47
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 5:30-47
Message of the verses: “30 “I can do nothing on My own initiative.
As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will,
but the will of Him who sent Me. 31
"If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true. 32 “There is
another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about
Me is true. 33 “You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. 34
“But the testimony which I receive is not from man, but I say these things so
that you may be saved. 35 “He was the lamp that was burning and was shining and
you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. 36 "But the
testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works
which the Father has given Me to accomplish-the very works that I do-testify
about Me, that the Father has sent Me. 37 "And the Father who sent Me, He
has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His
form. 38 “You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him
whom He sent. 39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you
have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me
so that you may have life. 41 “I do not receive glory from men; 42 but I know you, that you do
not have the love of God in yourselves. 43 “I have come in My Father’s name,
and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive
him. 44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you
do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? 45 “Do not think that
I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your
hope. 46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. 47
“But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"”
We have
been and continue to talk about Israel’s waywardness from the Lord as seen
through the different OT prophets. In
the Hebrew Scriptures we find that the Lord and the nation of Israel were
married in a spiritual sense, and when Israel would go and serve other gods
they were committing adultery with the Lord and MacArthur writes that the use
of the word adultery is seen more as spiritual adultery than physical in the
OT. I have to say that this spiritual
adultery was painful to the heart of the Lord as He brought about the nation of
Israel through a miracle of a 100 year old man and a 90 year old woman having a
baby, and He cared for them, brought them out of slavery from Egypt after 400
years of slavery which is a picture of redemption. Israel, from the beginning wanted to serve
other gods, and not follow the Lord as while Moses was up on the mountain
receiving the Ten Commandments Israel was making an idol and having a sensual
party. However all of what Israel did to
sin against the Lord did not stop Him from loving them nor did He forsake His
unconditional promises to them, as these are still in effect and will be
fulfilled during the Millennial Kingdom.
In our
study of the OT prophets we have seen the love that the Lord has for Israel
along with the judgment that He would bring against them, but while studying
the book of Hosea and his unfaithful wife whom he bought back from a slave
market, this too shows the love that the Lord has for Israel.
John
MacArthur writes “In two dramatic passages in Jeremiah, God made it unmistakably
clear that He will never abandon Israel:
‘35 Thus
says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the
moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves
roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: 36 “If this fixed order departs From before Me,"
declares the LORD, "Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From
being a nation before Me forever." 37 Thus says the LORD, "If the heavens above can be
measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also
cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,"
declares the LORD (Jer. 31:35-37).’
‘20 “Thus
says the LORD, ’If you can break My covenant for the day and My covenant for
the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, 21 then
My covenant may also be broken with David My servant so that he will not have a
son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My ministers.
22 ’As the host of heaven cannot be
counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the
descendants of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.’" 25 "Thus says the LORD, ’If My covenant
for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have
not established, 26 then I would reject
the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his descendants
rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But I will restore
their fortunes and will have mercy on them’ (Jer. 33:20-22, 25-26).’”
When we get
to the New Testament we find the apostle Paul echoing some of the OT verses as
he also tells of how the Lord will never forsake Israel. He does say that the Lord has at this time,
the church age, sat Israel aside, but does not and will not forsake them. Let us look at Romans 11:1-2, 25-26 “1 I say then, God has not rejected His people,
has He? May it never be!
For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2
God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the
Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against
Israel?’ ‘25 For I do not want you,
brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery-so that you will not be wise in your
own estimation-that a
partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has
come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
"THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM
JACOB."’”
Yes there
is a method to our madness as we have briefly looked at Israel’s unfaithfulness
to the Lord and His continued love for them.
At this time I want to conclude this section with a quote from John
MacArthur’s commentary.
“From verse
17 to the end of the chapter, Jesus defended Himself for healing a lame man on
the Sabbath (5:1-16), an act which the Jewish authorities considered a blatant
violation of Sabbath law (5:16). Jesus,
however, did not break any biblical regulations, but rather the rabbinic
traditions that had developed around them.
Yet the Lord did not defend Himself by noting that distinction. Instead, He asserted His equality with the
Father, and thus His right to work on the Sabbath just as the Father did (v.
17). Shocked by what they considered a
blasphemous claim to deity, the Jews felt justified in redoubling their efferts
to kill Jesus (v. 18). Jesus responded
by strengthening His claims to equality with God by doing equal works, equally
giving life, receiving equal honor, and equally executing final judgment on all
(vv. 19-29).
“Verse 30
summarizes the Son’s claim to be equal with the Father. Contrary to His opponents’, accusations, He
did not act on His ‘won imitative,’ but rather always and only in complete
conjunction with the Father (cf. v. 19).
Therefore by accusing Him of wrongdoing, the Jewish leaders were
simultaneously accusing the Father as well.
Since the immediate context involves the Son’s activity as judge (vv.
27-29), the Lord used that as an illustration and a warning, declaring, ‘As I
hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but
of Him who sent Me.’ Since Jesus always
acts in perfect harmony with the ‘will of’ the Father ‘who sent’ Him, His’
judgment’ is always ‘just.’ And it will
be justly executed on those who reject and oppose Him.
“When the
Lord said, ‘If I along testify about Myself, My testimony is not true,’ He did
not mean to imply that His self-witness in unreliable (cf. 8:14). His point was that His Jewish opponents
claimed His own self-testimony was not sufficient. The issue was not whether that testimony was
true in itself, but whether His opponents would believe Him. So He offered more testimony as evidence.
“In verses
33-37 Jesus called on additional confirmation from four unimpeachable sources
to corroborate His claims; the forerunner’s witness, the finished works, the
Father’s word, and the faithful writings.”
We will
have more to say about this in our next SD from a recent sermon from John
MacArthur.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “The breadth of the human finger.”
Today’s Bible question:
“Where was the blood to be striken during the Passover?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/15/2016 12:19 PM
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