The Promise of the Vision (Zech. 4:11-14)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/31/2016 9:11 PM

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  The Promise of the Vision

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Zechariah 4:11-14

            Message of the verses:  “11 Then I said to him, "What are these two olive trees on the right of the lampstand and on its left?" 12 And I answered the second time and said to him, "What are the two olive branches which are beside the two golden pipes, which empty the golden oil from themselves?" 13 So he answered me, saying, "Do you not know what these are?" And I said, "No, my lord." 14 Then he said, "These are the two anointed ones who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth."”

            What we have here is a picture, or a promise of the time when Israel will be a blessing to the whole world, and this has to happen during the Millennial Kingdom, but if we think about it Israel has always been a blessing to the world.  Why do I say that?  Well think about the Word of God as it has come through those who are from Israel, and then we have to think about the Messiah, the Savior of the world, He too came from the nation of Israel. Paul tells the Romans in chapters 9-11 that Israel has been set aside by the Lord, but not forever for when the church age is complete at the rapture of the church then God will go back to dealing with Israel.  I have mentioned in earlier SD’s and especially when we looked at the book of Daniel and the ninth chapter of Daniel where we see a very long prophecy of 490 years which began in the second chapter of the book of Nehemiah and then 483 years later we see that God stopped it for a while.  In the 19^th chapter of the book of Luke we see Jesus coming into Jerusalem to offer Himself to be their King, but they rejected Him and so the prophecy stopped with seven years left on it.  Daniel writes that it will begin again when the Antichrist signs a peace treaty with the nation of Israel for seven years, which begins the tribulation period and this concludes with the second coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and soon after that the Millennial Kingdom will begin where Jesus Christ will rule on David’s throne from Jerusalem and Israel will receive their long promised kingdom, and this 4^th chapter of Zechariah tells us that during this time Israel will begin to bless the nations around them as they should have been doing since they began. 

            John MacArthur writes “These two anointed ones, As the lamp stand symbolizes Israel in full fellowship with God, the Holy Spirit, the source of fuel, and becoming a light bearer to the world, as he was called to be, we now see the two olive trees through which the blessings of God is flowing to the nation.  And those two things are the office of king and priest, the royal and priestly offices, as we mentioned.

            “The two anointed ones, literally that means the sons of oil, have to be the king and priest.  And the word for oil there is incidentally fresh oil, which indicates that it is fresh oil out of a tree rather than manufactured oil.  And again we go right back to the absolute accuracy of the word of God that God is trying to present something that has no human instrumentation and even uses the right word for oil, so we know it’s not the manufactured kind, but ischar, which has to do with fresh oil.

            “So he’s saying it is the pure power of the Spirit of God flowing through the priestly kingly office into the life of Israel that makes it radiate messianic truth.  And we know who the king priest is none other than Christ himself.  So it is Christ starting and finishing the cycle.”

Now in our next SD we will look at the concluding “P” which is the “Person of the Vision.”

5/31/2016 9:34 PM

The Promise of the Vision (Zech. 4:11-14)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/31/2016 9:11 PM

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  The Promise of the Vision

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Zechariah 4:11-14

            Message of the verses:  “11 Then I said to him, "What are these two olive trees on the right of the lampstand and on its left?" 12 And I answered the second time and said to him, "What are the two olive branches which are beside the two golden pipes, which empty the golden oil from themselves?" 13 So he answered me, saying, "Do you not know what these are?" And I said, "No, my lord." 14 Then he said, "These are the two anointed ones who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth."”

            What we have here is a picture, or a promise of the time when Israel will be a blessing to the whole world, and this has to happen during the Millennial Kingdom, but if we think about it Israel has always been a blessing to the world.  Why do I say that?  Well think about the Word of God as it has come through those who are from Israel, and then we have to think about the Messiah, the Savior of the world, He too came from the nation of Israel. Paul tells the Romans in chapters 9-11 that Israel has been set aside by the Lord, but not forever for when the church age is complete at the rapture of the church then God will go back to dealing with Israel.  I have mentioned in earlier SD’s and especially when we looked at the book of Daniel and the ninth chapter of Daniel where we see a very long prophecy of 490 years which began in the second chapter of the book of Nehemiah and then 483 years later we see that God stopped it for a while.  In the 19^th chapter of the book of Luke we see Jesus coming into Jerusalem to offer Himself to be their King, but they rejected Him and so the prophecy stopped with seven years left on it.  Daniel writes that it will begin again when the Antichrist signs a peace treaty with the nation of Israel for seven years, which begins the tribulation period and this concludes with the second coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and soon after that the Millennial Kingdom will begin where Jesus Christ will rule on David’s throne from Jerusalem and Israel will receive their long promised kingdom, and this 4^th chapter of Zechariah tells us that during this time Israel will begin to bless the nations around them as they should have been doing since they began. 

            John MacArthur writes “These two anointed ones, As the lamp stand symbolizes Israel in full fellowship with God, the Holy Spirit, the source of fuel, and becoming a light bearer to the world, as he was called to be, we now see the two olive trees through which the blessings of God is flowing to the nation.  And those two things are the office of king and priest, the royal and priestly offices, as we mentioned.

            “The two anointed ones, literally that means the sons of oil, have to be the king and priest.  And the word for oil there is incidentally fresh oil, which indicates that it is fresh oil out of a tree rather than manufactured oil.  And again we go right back to the absolute accuracy of the word of God that God is trying to present something that has no human instrumentation and even uses the right word for oil, so we know it’s not the manufactured kind, but ischar, which has to do with fresh oil.

            “So he’s saying it is the pure power of the Spirit of God flowing through the priestly kingly office into the life of Israel that makes it radiate messianic truth.  And we know who the king priest is none other than Christ himself.  So it is Christ starting and finishing the cycle.”

Now in our next SD we will look at the concluding “P” which is the “Person of the Vision.”

5/31/2016 9:34 PM

PT-2 The Assertion (John 8:12)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/31/2016 9:44 AM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:   PT-2 The Assertion

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 8:12

            Message of the verses:  “12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life."”

            In our last SD we talked about the fulfillment of prophecies that spoke of God being light, and that His Messiah would be light and how Jesus took the perfect opportunity to show those watching and listening to Him how He fulfills these prophecies.  Now in today’s SD we want to look at the last part of verse twelve “he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

            Jesus’ statement of those who follow Him will not walk in darkness shows us that His light is eternal, unlike the glowing candelabras that were a part of this Jewish feast of Tabernacles.  Think of in the history of the Exodus how God was a light to them as they wondered throughout the wilderness in a pillar of fire.  Let us look at Exodus 40:36-38 “36  Throughout all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out; 37  but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day when it was taken up. 38 For throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel.”  Incidentally these are the last three verses in the book of Exodus.

            Now as we see the Lord asking people to follow Him, we know that this is not the first time that this offer has been made and we will look at a few times this offer was made in John’s gospel.  1:43 “The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, "Follow Me."”  10:4 “"When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”  10:27 “"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;”  12:26 “"If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”  21:19 “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!"”  21:22 “Jesus *said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!"”

            Jesus promises that the one who follows Him will not walk in the darkness of sin, the world, and Satan, however will have the Light, and this Light produces spiritual life.  Believers, by following Jesus will reflect His Light so those in the world can see it as He said in Matthew 5:14 “"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;” I have always remember my favorite President, President Reagan stated that United States was to be that bright and shinning light.  I suppose that if you look at our solar system we are in that Jesus would represent the Sun, as the planets orbit around the sun, and we as believers would represent the moon which gives reflected light to the earth at night, the light is not its own, but reflected from the sun.  Leon Morris writes “They, having kindled their torches at His bright flame, show to the world something of His light.”

            John MacArthur writes “Akoloutheo (follows) is sometimes used in a general sense to speak of the crows who followed Jesus.  But it can also refer, more specifically, to following Him as a true disciple (eg. 1:43; 10:4, 27; 12:26; Matt. 4:20, 22; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; 19:27; Mark 9:38).  In that context, it has the connotation of complete submission to Jesus as Lord.  God does not accept a halfhearted following of Christ—of receiving Him as Savior, but not following Him as Lord.  The person who comes to Jesus comes to Him on His terms, or he does not come at all—a truth Jesus illustrated in Matthew 8:18-22 ‘18 Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea. 19 Then a scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go." 20 Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." 21 Another of the disciples said to Him, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." 22 But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead."’

            “An even more striking illustration of that principle is found in Jesus’ dialogue with the rich young ruler: ‘18 A ruler questioned Him, saying, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 19 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 20  "You know the commandments, ’DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’" 21 And he said, "All these things I have kept from my youth." 22  When Jesus heard this, He said to him, "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." 23 But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24 And Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! 25 “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 26 They who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?" 27 But He said, "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God’ (Luke 18:18-27).”

            I want to give a couple of quotes from the MacArthur Study Bible on these two sections of Scripture.  When I listened to his sermon from 1970 he had made some comments that I wanted to quote, but when I looked on his website I could not look at this sermon for some reason.  He writes the following from his study Bible:  “8:21 permit me first to go and bury my father.  This does not mean that the man’s father was already dead.  The phrase ‘I must bury my father’ was a common figure of speech meaning, ‘Let me wait until I receive my inheritance.’

            Now as far as the rich young ruler Jesus knows all things as mentioned in the second chapter of John and He knew that this man did not or could not keep all of the commandments but Jesus did not argue with Him about this, but He got to the root of the problem which was that his riches were his god and did not want to stop worshiping his wealth,

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  To follow the Lord and allow His Light to show me when I am moving into the darkness of the world.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Do a better job at my memorizing my verses so that I can begin to meditate on them.

Memory verses for the week:  2 Corinthians 12:7-9a 7. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself.  8. Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.  9.  And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness,’

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Samuel” (1 Samuel 3:10).

Today’s Bible question:  “In what city did Paul fight with beasts?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/31/2016 10:52 AM

             

PT-2 The Plan of the Vision (Zech. 4:9-10)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/30/2016 11:55 PM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-2 The Plan of the Vision

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Zechariah 4:9-10

            Message of the verses:  “9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will finish it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. 10 “For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven will be glad when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel-these are the eyes of the LORD which range to and fro throughout the earth."”

            We are talking about the plan of the vision in today’s SD, as we have broken this section up into two different Spiritual Diaries.  John MacArthur states that there is a two-fold prophecy in this section of Zechariah and we have mentioned this in earlier Spiritual Diaries that this is what happens in many of the OT prophecies as they have a future meaning and then a far distance meaning too.   He Writes:  “So what is the plan?  Now watch, the plan God the Father lays out the plan, God the Son directs its fulfillment, God the Holy Spirit supplies its power.  The whole Trinity involved with Israel in the past as they built their temple and in the future as the kingdom comes.  And just as the Davidic prince, Zerubbable was to complete the restoration temple, so the greater Davidic king, Christ, will build the millennial temple.”

            Now we want to look at verse ten in more detail and talk about who it is that has despised the day of small things.  When we studied the book of Ezra and Haggai we learned that there were some in the remnant who had seen the wonderful temple that Solomon had built and the one that the remnant built was much smaller and so they were the ones who despised the small things.  Now as far as the “seven” he is talking about the seven eyes of the Lord, and the reason there are seven is because seven is the number of perfection, the omniscient of the Lord.  God is  happy over the building of this temple, and so if God is  happy, then we should be too, along with the remnant for after all this temple will be the one that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God will go into and even teach from along with running out of it the money changers because of the fact that He is zealous for God’s house.

            Since God is happy over this relativity small thing we know that He will be happy over the coming kingdom of Israel where His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ will rule the world from Jerusalem.  Now after studying many of these OT prophecies about the end times and what will happen in it and knowing that none of it will be possible without Israel being in the land, which they have been not for 68 years, this makes me happy to see them there.

            In our next SD from Zechariah we will look at the promise of the vision.

5/31/2016 12:16 AM

             

           

PT-1 The Assertion (John 8:12)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/30/2016 11:20 AM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  The Assertion PT-1

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  John 8:12

            Message of the verses:  “12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life."”

            We have already mentioned that this verse, verse twelve fits better with verse fifty-two of chapter seven, and in this verse we see the second “I Am” statement and as John MacArthur points out that these statements (I Am’s) “reveal different facets of Christ’s nature as God and His work as Savior.  John had already used the metaphor of light to describe Jesus (1:4, 8-9; cf. Rev. 21:23), and it was one rich in Old Testament allusions (cf. Ex. 13:21-22; 14:19-20; Neh. 9:12, 19; Pss. 27:1; 36:9; 43:3; 44:3; 104:2; 119:105, 130; Prov. 6:23; Isa. 60:19-21; Ezek. 1:4, 13, 26-28; Mic. 7:8; Hab. 3:3-4; Zech. 14:5b-7).”

            I now want to look at several verses from both the Old Testament and New Testament showing that when Jesus made this statement “I am the light of the world,” that He was proclaiming that He is not only God, but the Messiah. 

Psalm 27:1 “The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?”

Isaiah 42:6 “"I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations,”

Isaiah 49:6 “He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."”

Isaiah 60:19 “"No longer will you have the sun for light by day, Nor for brightness will the moon give you light; But you will have the LORD for an everlasting light, And your God for your glory.”

1 John 1:5 “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

            Now a quote from a previous sermon from John MacArthur pertaining to this verse:  “You say, "Why is He called light?" to the darkness of falsehood He is the light of truth. To the darkness of ignorance He is the light of wisdom. To the darkness of impurity He is the light of holiness. To the darkness of sorrow He is the light of joy. To the darkness of death He's the light of life. He is called light because the world is dark and the antithesis of darkness is what? Is light. He is everything the world isn't. And Jesus is saying nothing more and nothing less at this point than I am your Messiah.”

            Now as we connect 7:52 with this section, 8:12-21 we see that we are still in the celebration of the Feast of the Tabernacles, and we remember when we studied 7:37-39 when Jesus used a metaphor of living water which was very relevant in that feast, showing that He was the Messiah, and that similar to telling the woman at the well about being living water:  “"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ’Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water’ (John 4:10b).”  We also learned about the pouring out of the water during this feast, and now we want to talk about another ritual that was performed during this feast that has to do with light which happened at night.  “in a lamp-lighting ceremony.  In the very Court of the Women where Jesus was speaking, four huge candelabra were lit, pushing light up into the night sky like a searchlight.  So brilliant was their light that one ancient Jewish source declared, ‘There was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that did not reflect [their] light’ (cited in F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John.’  They served as a reminder of the pillar of fire by which God had guided Israel in the wilderness (Ex. 13:21-22). The people—even the most dignified leaders—danced exuberantly around the candelabra through the night, holding blazing torches in their hands and singing songs of praise.  It was against the backdrop of that ceremony that Jesus made the stunning announcement that He is the true Light of the world.”

            Now we can get a better idea of why this statement is given at this particular time showing to all, and still showing to those interested that Jesus is the Light of the world, and not like those temporary and stationary candelabras that were seen during this Feast of the Tabernacles.  The problem with those lights is that they go out, but His light will never go out.  Let’s look at a verse in the book of Revelation that shows us of the power and brilliance of this Light of God:  “Re Re 21:23  And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.  Rev. 22:5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.”  Think about when Jesus was up on the Mount of Transfiguration and how bright He shined as a portion of His glory shined at that time.  There is also a verse in Milaca that speaks of this in a little different way:  “Mal 4:2  "But for you who fear My name, the Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”

            We will look at the rest of this verse in our next SD as we look at the word “follow” and how it applies to us.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is my desire to walk in the Light and not walk in the darkness of this world, a darkness that indeed offers pleasures, but temporary and non rewarding treasures.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Memory verses for the week:  2 Corinthians 12:7-9a “7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself.  8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.  9 And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness,’”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “A vision came to him” (Matthew 2:13).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘Speak; for thy servant heareth’?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/30/2016 12:09 PM.

 

 

The Area (John 8:20)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/29/2016 5:53 AM

My Worship Time                                                              Focus:  The Area                   

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                            Reference:  John 8:20

            Message of the verse: “20 These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.”

            I want to remember that in this section, John 8:12-21 that we are looking at the statement that Jesus made in verse 12 where He stated “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  As we begin to look at these verses it is important for us to understand where it was that Jesus made this statement, a statement that would cause another conflict, something we are becoming familiar with as we study John’s gospel.  It is also good to remember what John wrote this gospel, for we see throughout it the theme that he writes in chapter twenty, verses 30-31 “30 Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” 

            We see from verse twenty that Jesus made this statement from the temple treasury and this as we will see is an important place to make this statement.  In this treasury we will learn that there are thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles or treasure boxes in which people could put their offerings into.  This section is in what is called “The Court of the Women” which is the second outermost court.  Now normally women could not go any further into the temple than this area, but they could get far enough in to bring their offerings.  I want to quote from a sermon that John MacArthur gave on this section of Scripture as he talks about what each of these “offering boxes” were for.  “They were very specific as to their connection.  Number one and number two trumpet receptacle was designed for the half shackle temple tax that everyone had to pay.  Number three and number four were where women put money to purchase the two pigeons that they needed to offer to purify themselves from childbearing.

“Number five was where the money went to purchase the wood for the fire on the alter.  Number six also for the incense in the alter.  Five and six then for things related to the sacrifices.  Number seven was designated as the receptacle to keep up the golden vessels of the temple, to hire the people to clean them and have money to replace them.  Then you have eight through 13.  Those were for the general fund, anything and everything else.  There’s where Jesus is.  He’s in this Court of the Women.  It would be the most packed court in the temple.  Just keep that in mind.”

John MacArthur finishes his short commentary on this section by writing “Since the Court of the Women was a busy public location, it was ideal for Jesus to teach there.  The Sanhedrin met in a nearby hall, almost within earshot of the Lord’s voice, yet ‘no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.’  Jesus was always under the sovereign control of His Father and the divine schedule, so that His enemies were powerless to harm Him before the appointed time.”

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I serve an awesome God who loves me and who has planned my life in order that I may bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, as His timing is perfect even though there are many times when it does not look like that to me when things happen that I do not understand until later on.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Proverbs 3:5-6.

Memory verses for the week:  2 Corinthians 12:7-8 “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself.  8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “The apostles’ (1 Corinthians 4:9).

Today’s Bible question:  “How did Joseph know to flee to Egypt with Jesus and His mother?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/29/2016 6:20 AM

 

The Plan of the Vision PT-1 (Zech. 4:7-8)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/28/2016 2:38 PM

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  The Plan of the Vision PT-1

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Zechariah 4:7-8

            Message of the verse:  “’What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"’"”  “7 Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel way; it will become a level plain before him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the Temple in place, the people will shout: ’May God bless it! May God bless it (NLT).”

            We have mentioned in earlier SD,s, in fact many of them that there are times when we read the prophets that it is hard to distinguish what time period they are writing about, and at many times they may be writing about more than one time period.  Remember what we have learned about the Day of the Lord which in its final stage will be during the end of the Tribulation period, but there were times when the prophets wrote about it and there would be a big problem for Israel which would make one think that the Day of the Lord was there, but in fact it was not the true Day of the Lord.  Now in verse seven of chapter four we are not talking about the Day of the Lord, but are talking about when Zerubbable would finish the temple even though there would be many obstacles in his way.  However as we look ahead we know that during the end times there will also be a time period when there will be many problems for Israel and God will be the One, as always, who is in charge and will accomplish what He has determined to take place.  I think of when Israel became a nation in May of 1948 and right away there was a great war to try and defeat them, but Israel prevailed and I believe that it was the Lord who caused them to prevail.  In 1967 another war took place and against all odds not only did Israel win but they captured the city of Jerusalem too.   God is in control, however at this point the people of Israel are trusting in their war machine as opposed to the Lord, but that will change.

            God is saying through Zechariah that in spite of all odds Zerubbable will finish the temple as he will be the one who puts the last stone in place, “the top stone,” “the final stone of the Temple.” 

            Let’s look at the last part of the verse where the phrase “the people will shout,” is seen.  The Hebrew term means a loud noise, or loud noises.  We see in the book of Psalms a lot about shouting.  I am sure that after the temple was finished that there was many loud noises given by the people in praise to the Lord.  Let us look at Ezra 3:11 “They sang, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, saying, "For He is good, for His lovingkindness is upon Israel forever." And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.” 

            John MacArthur writes the following on the futuristic aspect of this:  “You know that the first time the Messiah came the time He offered himself as a Messiah and came into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They threw palm branches in His path and they shouted and screamed, didn't they? But they didn't receive the kingdom because before the week was out they killed Him. But in the kingdom when it comes there's going to be shouting and praising like you never imagined.

            “Isaiah talks about it. I have to just tell you what he says because it's from God and you ought to know. Isaiah 12:1, "In that day thou shalt say, O Lord I will praise Thee, though Thou was angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, Thou comfortedst me. Behold God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord is my strength and my song," verse 3, "Therefore, with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. In that day shall ye say praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings and so forth." Verse 5, "Sing unto the Lord." Verse 6, what does it say? "Cry out and shout for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." So when the Messiah comes you're going to have the same kind of screaming and yelling all over the place that you had when Zerubabbel finished the temple and stuck the headstone in.

“Verse 8, still talking about the plan as it unfolds. "Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying, 'The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it and thou shalt know the Lord of armies has sent me unto you.'" Now this stresses not only the certainty of completing the temple but doing so in the lifetime of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel will finish it, this is the word of the Lord, and God's word is inviolable and incontrovertible. Zerubbabel will finish it in order that God may be glorified.

“And I want you to notice something. Notice the word me at the end of verse 9. "And thou shalt know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me unto you." It is very likely that the Me is best understood as the angel of the Lord again, who is the one speaking the word of the Lord in verse 8. Interpreter angel just interpreted what was seen. The proclamation seems to come from the angel of the Lord, so it is Christ and in that day when the temple, the ultimate temple looking beyond to the prophetic element, when it is finished then thou shalt know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me, the angel of the Lord, none other than Christ the Messiah, unto you. He is the one.”

5/28/2016 3:05 PM

 

2nd Intro to John 8:12-21

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/28/2016 8:56 AM

My Worship Time                                                         Focus:  PT-2 Introduction to John 8:12-21

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 8:12-21

            Message of the verses:  “12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life." 13 So the Pharisees said to Him, "You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true." 14 Jesus answered and said to them, "Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. 16  "But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. 17  "Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. 18 “I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me." 19 So they were saying to Him, "Where is Your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also." 20 These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.  21 Then He said again to them, "I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come."”

            We have just looked at Zechariah 4:6 in our study of the book of Zechariah, and the entire 4^th chapter of Zechariah speaks of Israel being the light of the world, something that will surely happen during the millennial kingdom, and now we are studying John 8:12-21 where Jesus tells us that He, Israel’s Messiah is the Light of the world, and in our Sunday school this week we will be looking at the 49^th chapter of Isaiah where in verse six of that chapter and also in Isaiah 42:6 we read of the prophecies of the Messiah being the Light, so as we move forward in this study of John in this portion we will understand that the Pharisees and also the Scribes knew that Jesus was indeed claiming to be the Messiah, and also the very Son of God.

            Now the idea of Jesus being light is not something knew found in the gospel of John for we read the following from chapter one “4  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:4-5).”  The question is why do we need light?  Well we need light to overcome the darkness, and how is darkness described in the Word of God:  “From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness;” “The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know over what they stumble (Proverbs 2:13 & 4:19).”  Let’s look at Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”  Ok we get the idea that in the Word of God darkness is a metaphor for sin and light for righteousness.  We also know that if you are in a pitch black, dark room and you light a very small candle that the light will always overcome the darkness and that in a nutshell is how a person is saved from their sins as the Light of the gospel shines on our dark souls and we understand that we have lived in the darkness of sin and desire to have the Light brought into our lives so we can be saved from the darkness we have been living in. 

            “Into the sin-darkened world came Jesus Christ as ‘the Light [that] shines in the darkness’ (1:5); ‘the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man’ (v.9)” writes John MacArthur.

            As we go through the verses we will be looking at “the area in which the conflict took place, the Lord’s assertion, the leader’s accusation, the Lord’s answer to that accusation, and His announcement of their impending judgment.”  Chapter eight, the entire chapter has much conflict that will take place and this is just the beginning of that conflict.

5/28/2016 11:37 AM:  Time out for a soccer game with the grandson.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I realize that I, too must be a light in the dark place that I live, and by the power of the Holy Spirit tell others about embracing the true Light.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to see me through the battles that the enemy tries to cause me to fall into.

Memory verses for the week:  2 Corinthians 12:7-8 “7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself.  8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “He caused it to float.”  (2 Kings 6:1-6).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who as a spectacle unto the world?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/28/2016 11:43 AM

 

The Power in the Vision (Zech. 4:6)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/28/2016 8:15 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                 Focus: Power in the Vision

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Zechariah 4:6

            Message of the verses:  “6 Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ’Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.”  “6 “This is GOD’s Message to Zerubbabel: ‘You can’t force these things. They only come about through my Spirit,’ says GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies (Message).”

            John MacArthur writes “One of the great verses in the Bible!  I want to show you just a distinction here you need to make.  Not by might, and in the Hebrew that refers to the strength of many, and not by power, and in the Hebrew that refers to the strength on go great one.”

            Now since we know what this has to say in the Hebrew we can then understand that the restoration of Israel will not be due to a collective operation on the part of their strong men, nor will it be due to the efforts of one great and strong man.  So the answer as to where the power comes from is the Holy Spirit.  When something is to get done that God wants to get done He gives power through His Holy Spirit.  Now let’s take this example over to our witnessing of the truth of the gospel and we read “You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses (Acts 1:8).”  Let us also look at Acts 4:31 “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”

            I want to say something that I have probably said in a past SD, but I think it applies to this section, since this is a very important verse in the Word of God.  Let us look at Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  This verse comes right after Paul writes as to how we have been saved, which is by grace through faith and it is not of ourselves, as it is a gift of God.  So he is saying that we are not saved by our own efforts, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, however after we are saved God has given us works to do, and now I want to look at Colossians 2:6 “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,” and this tells us how we are to walk in our Christian life, as it is the same way we’re saved, by grace through faith, and as stated this comes through the power of the Holy Spirit who has given us an effectual call which we cannot say no to.  The Spirit calls us to salvation and the Spirit enables us to do the work that God has called us to do and as we go back to our verse in Zechariah we see that this is done not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord of Heavens Armies.  I want to add one more thing that I am convinced is true and that has to do with the believers rewards that Paul writes about in a couple of his NT letters.  How do believers earn those rewards?  God has given us work to do and we do it through the power of the Holy Spirit so that He receives the glory, remember what Paul wrote concerning salvation “8  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9  not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:8-9).”  If we could do the works that God wants us to do in our own power we would have something to boast about, but we must do them through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Now we will look at a quote from John MacArthur concerning this verse.

            “Now you'll notice something interesting in verse 6. It says, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel." And here Zerubbabel was the chief ruler over Israel. We know that from Haggai where that is recorded for us. Haggai, I think you might want to look for just a minute at verse 4 of Chapter 2, "Be strong O Zerubbabel saith the Lord and be strong O Joshua, and there's those two, the one in civil authority and the one in religious authority, and so forth, and so these two people are the ones who stand in the power. In Ezra 2:2 you have a similar indication of the authority that has been given to Zerubbabel as one who is responsible for leading the people.

“Now this man had a lot of obstacles in front of him and a lot of them piled up. He was trying to lead the nation to the rebuilding of the wall and he was trying to lead the nation to the restoration of the temple and he was fighting obstacle after obstacle after obstacle. But God says to him, "Zerubbabel, it's going to be done historically and it's going to be done by the Holy Spirit and it was. Now the Holy Spirit used a human vessel to build that wall. Who was it? Nehemiah, but he did it in 52 days and everybody said, "It had to be God, it had to be God." So historically note he says to Zerubbabel, God's Spirit is going to rebuild this place, but Zerubbabel also, like Joshua, is a symbol of the whole nation and as historically Zerubbabel would see the city restored so future the nation will see the kingdom restored on its grandiose scale.

“The nation at this time was a mess. Things were rather tragic, but God says, "Zerubbabel, it's going to happen," and the implication of the future it's going to happen again when all of those who are the nation once led by Zerubbabel see God's power.

“Now notice what it says there at the end of verse 6, "But by My Spirit." The Spirit or the ruwachof God, the breath of God, this is the Spirit who worked in creation, where it says, "And God breathed and everything sprang to life." This is the spirit that opened and closed the Red Sea in Exodus 15, this is the Spirit in Ezekiel's vision in Chapter 37 where God breathed into the dead bones that had come together and the dead people came to life. It will be that Holy Spirit the ruwachof God who will restore and regenerate and rejuvenate Israel. Great, great future hope.

“Now I want to just add a footnote: all God's work is done by God's Spirit. Did you get that? All God's work is done by God's Spirit. Anything not done by His Spirit is not His work even if you call it that. The Spirit always works through spiritual gifts, the Spirit always works through holiness, the Spirit always works through the word and the Spirit always works through humility and where you have the gifts in operation holiness, the word, and humility you have God's Spirit at work in any generation.

“So the oil, then, is the picture of the Spirit and it's the flow of the Spirit in profuse quantity that's going to make that kingdom such a fantastic time. An interesting Bible study that I would just challenge you to do is to study the concept of oil in the Bible and how it relates to the Holy Spirit. Let me just give you a starting point, several little points. It won't take too long. This doesn't count in my sermon, okay? Number one: oil heals. Did you know that? Oil heals. Psalm 23, "Thou anointest my head with oil." The shepherd would put oil on the sheep's head when it had been bruised and it would sooth the cut. In the Bible oil again and again is applied to wounds. Luke 10:34, and James 5:14, and if we would make a parallel we would say it's the Holy Spirit who touches us in the time of our being wounded, in the time of our care, in the time of our sorrow, in the time of our distress, and the time when we've been cut and sooths those wounds with His marvelous presence. And oil lights as we see in the vision here. And certainly the Holy Spirit is the one who illuminates the believer's path. It is the Holy Spirit that leads us into truth. It is the Holy Spirit who lightens the heart of an unregenerate man and convicts him of sin. It is the Holy Spirit who opens the word of God to our understanding. He is light. And oil warms. Oil was used to produce heat. The unresponsive heart is warmed by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

“Read Luke 24, and the response of those on the road to Emmaus. Fourthly oil is a sign of joy. Did you know that? Did you know that in the Old Testament feast times oil was never applied in periods of sorrow and grief because it was reserved for periods of joy? Read Psalm 104:15, or II Samuel 12:20. Oil is a symbol of joy in the Old Testament and certainly the Holy Spirit is the source of joy. Romans 14:17 says, "The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." So you can follow that through yourself. The Holy Spirit is many things symbolized by oil.”

5/28/2016 8:54 AM

 

PT-1 Introduction to John 8:12-21

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/27/2016 11:01 AM

My Worship Time                                                           Focus:  PT- Introduction to John 8:12-21

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  John 8:12-21

            Message of the verses:  This is going to be one of my Spiritual Diaries that is different, and it will be rather short too.  We have just spent the last week or so going over John 7:53-8:11 and we spoke about how these verses were not in the original text but seemed to fit into where they are found in John’s gospel.  John MacArthur preached his sermon on this section in 1970, which was the first gospel that he preached through after getting to the church in 1969.  Now in other Spiritual Diaries I have mentioned that there were times when he seemed to change his mind from when he was preaching in 1970 and now when he is preaching once again through the gospel of John beginning around 2013.  Well this is another of those times, and I am very sure that it took a lot of his time to come to the conclusion that he came to as he begins this sermon which he entitles “I Am the Light of the World.”  Now I do want to say that the things that we studied over the last week or so are things that probably happened in the life of Jesus as we went over in our studies.  However we will see from my quote from this sermon by MacArthur that even though the things we learned were true as far as what we learned through these verses that they probably did not happen at the time in which they were put in John’s gospel and he will explain more about them in the quote.  I surely do not reject studying these verses as I learned much from them and I hope all who read those SD’s learned much from them too.  I will give the quote from John MacArthur at this time and then we will do another introduction in our next SD.

            “And at this particular point, I face a decision, which I’ve already made, and I’ll explain.  This familiar story, which actually embraces the last verse in chapter 7, the one that says everyone went to his home, this familiar story does not appear in the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament.  It does not appear in any of them at all.  Manuscript study is very important to guaranteeing the truthfulness of the text.  There are about 25,000 New Testament manuscripts, ancient manuscripts.

“The oldest of those uniformly do not contain this story.  And so you will find in your Bible probably a note in the margin that says, “Later manuscripts added this,” and that is correct.  Because we have so many manuscripts, there’s really little doubt that this was added later.  If something isn’t in the oldest and shows up later, obviously it was added.    

“There’s nothing in this story that is un-Christ like or unlike the behavior of Jesus.  There’s really nothing in the story that’s unlike the behavior of the religious leaders.  It’s a wonderful story of forgiveness.  Very likely, something like this happened and was passed down orally from person to person to person, and eventually, someone decided that the story ought to find its way into the New Testament, even though it wasn’t in the original.

“And so they put it there.  In most old manuscripts, it is placed here.  But sometimes in Old Manuscripts, we find it somewhere else in the Gospel of John, and we even find it sometimes in the Gospel of Luke.  So apparently, it was a story that floated around that somebody decided should find its way into the New Testament. 

“The problem with that is the church from its earliest years has known it didn’t belong there.  In fact, if you’re looking for ancient commentaries on this story written by church fathers and leaders, you won’t find one until the 12th century.  And even when you start to find the commentary in the 12th century, the notation is made that this doesn’t appear in the earliest manuscripts.  Why is it here?  Because somebody put it in.  Why is it in your Bible now?

“Because once it found its way in, it became traditionally a part of Scripture, and apparently, Bible translators are unwilling to remove it, so they just put a notation.  I’m happy to tell you that when this does happen, and it happens here, and it happened also at the end of Mark, there is a similar addition to the Gospel of Mark in the 16th chapter from verse 9 on.  I’m happy to tell you we know they are additions because we have those ancient manuscripts. 

“Consequently, we know that the Holy Spirit has then enabled us to preserve the true text.  I have written some notes about this story in the study Bible footnotes.  I’ve written something about this in the commentary on John in deference to people who would be interested in some kind of an interpretation, but the problem is if it didn’t appear in the original text, then it is not inerrant.  There’s no guarantee that it’s accurate.  There’s no guarantee that it’s without error, like every other part of Scripture.

“Furthermore, it interrupts the story that’s going on here.  I guess you could call this internal evidence.  It interrupts the story.  We are at this point starting in chapter 7 with Jesus at the feast of tabernacles.  It lasted a week in the fall of his final year, six months from the cross.  We have been going through the events when he arrived in the middle of the week, went to the temple and began to teach.  What follows this story in verse 12 is part of the ministry that Jesus had during the feast of tabernacles.

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have always had problems with verses that were added into different parts of the Word of God, and yet as stated I did learn much from John 7:53-8:11 as I was studying it.  I just have to be careful to believe what the Word of God teaches, especially when I put it onto my blogs as I would never want to lead anyone astray in what I write.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To continue to study, to continue to fight the good fight and to remember the words of the psalmist “O give us help against the adversary, For deliverance by man is in vain.”

Memory verses for the week:  2 Corinthians 12:7-8 “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself.  8  Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “The 23^rd.”

Today’s Bible question:  “How did Elisha get back the ax head that fell into the river?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/27/2016 11:31 AM  

 

PT-2 The Purpose of the Vision (Zech. 4:4-5)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2016 2:43 PM

My Worship Time                                                             Focus:  PT-2 The Purpose of the Vision

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Zechariah 4:4-5

            Message of the verses:  “4 Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me saying, "What are these, my lord?" 5 So the angel who was speaking with me answered and said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" And I said, "No, my lord."”

            The angel is asking Zechariah “do you know what these are?”  He was referring to the bowls which is seen in verse two:  “2 He said to me, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it,” and so the question is what is the bowl for and what does it represent.  What does oil symbolize in the New Testament and even in the Old Testament is the question we have to answer.  Oil represents the Holy Spirit and so the bowl on the top represents the Holy Spirit. 

            John MacArthur writes “But what's interesting to me is that fact that you have this bowl and out of this bowl flowing to the nation Israel in their millennial witness are 49 channels of the power of the Holy Spirit. You see the point that is being made? The point here is that there will be an unlimited supply of power from the Holy Spirit. And you remember the words of Joel where Joel says, "In the last days I will, what, pour out my spirit on all flesh and remarkable things will happen." And so in the millennial picture we see the nation Israel as the lamp stand, we see the Spirit of God being poured out in profusion so that the light becomes gloriously brilliant. And all of it really is a declaration of the one who is the light, none other than Jesus the Messiah.”

            Now when you look at this vision you see, as we have talked about before that all of this is automatic, the oil is produced from the olive tree, and the olive oil goes into the bowl and then into the lamp stand so that you have a continued light without anyone to work on it like they did in the OT. 

            Next we look at the two olive trees and ask what are they?  Let’s look at verse 14b “"These are the two anointed ones who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth."”  In the nation of Israel there are two people who are anointed, and one of them is the king, and the other is the high priest as these represent the religious and the spiritual offices of Israel.  Zerubbable who was in line to be king as he came from the line of David, and so he would be the civic leader and Joshua the high priest the religious portion of Israel.  Now prophetically who is the One who is both King and High Priest?  Well that is of course Jesus Christ. 

            MacArthur writes “And so Zechariah recognizes this and he is seeing Christ here. So summing it up we have the light of Messiah provided by the golden oil, and it's called golden oil in verse 12 because of its preciousness, the light of Messiah provided by the golden oil poured into the lamp stand of Israel and that's basically what Zechariah sees. And the actual source of all of it is none other than the Messiah himself so the thing goes full circle.”

            We have looked at the presentation of the vision, along with the purpose of the vision and in our next SD we will look at the power of the vision.

5/26/2016 3:05 PM

           

His Indictment and Forgiveness (John 8:9-11)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2016 11:04 AM

My Worship Time                                                                Focus:  His Indictment & Forgiveness

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  John 8:9-11

            Message of the verse:  Since we are covering two short sections today we will look first at “His Indictment which only covers verse 9a:  “When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones.”

            Now once the Scribes and Pharisees heard the devastating message from Jesus they began to leave beginning with the older ones.  MacArthur writes “Some manuscripts add, ‘being convicted by their conscience,’ which is certainly implied.”  He does not say if he believes that part should be in the verse or not.  Why do you think that the older ones left first?  Well I guess I would fit into the category of being older and older people have experienced more of life and know more about what is right and wrong.  Perhaps they were embarrassed about the humiliating defeat they had just suffered from our Lord, something that caused them to want to run away fast.  Another reason is that the older ones had more sin to remember.

            MacArthur writes:  “Ironically, those who came to put Jesus to shame left ashamed; those who came to condemn the woman went away condemned.  Unfortunately, their indictment and sense of guilt did not lead them to repentance and faith in Christ.  Like many who hear and feel the convicting truth of the law, they harden their hearts and turned away from Him, not even open to gospel forgiveness.”

            His Forgiveness: John 8:9b-11 “and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" 11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."]]”

            Now all of the scribes and Pharisees had left, as far as the crowd it is uncertain as to whether or not they left.  At any rate Jesus now speaks for the first time to the woman and asks her where her accusers were.  Then asks if any of them condemn her to which she replies “no one.”  Now we have spoken about the term “woman” that we see in different places of the Scripture that was used by Jesus, including calling His mother “woman” as we discussed from our discussion in chapter two.  The term is a polite term not a demeaning term as it seems to be used today in our society.

            Now we should look at a few verses to remind us that Jesus has the divine prerogative to forgive sin:  “"But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"-then He *said to the paralytic, "Get up, pick up your bed and go home’ (Matthew 9:6).”  “"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:17).”  “"If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world (John 12:47).”

            John MacArthur writes “Forgiveness does not imply license to sin.  Jesus did not condemn her, but He did command her to abandon her sinful lifestyle.  Gerald L. Borchert writes, ‘Jesus’ verdict, ‘neither do I condemn,’ however, was not rendered as a simple acquittal or a noncondemnation.  The verdict was in fact a strict charge for her to live from this point on (apo tou nun) very differently—to sin no more (meketi hamartane). The liberating work of Jesus did not mean the excusing of sin.  Encountering Jesus always has demanded the transformation of life, the turning away from sin…Sin was not treated lightly by Jesus, but sinners were offered the opportunity to start life anew.’”

            We will look now at what Paul had to say about this subject from Romans 6:1-2 “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”  The phrase “may it never be” is the strongest Greek term of saying not to do it.

            MacArthur concludes “This story is far more than a battleground for textual critics.  It paints a marvelous picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose gracious humility, infinite wisdom, convicting speech, and tender forgiveness are it central themes.  All Christians should be grateful to God for sovereignty preserving it.”  

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am very thankful that this portion of Scripture has been preserved so that I can learn its truths, something that I did not even bother to study before because of not knowing whether or not it belonged there.  Jesus Christ has the authority, the divine authority to forgive sin and for that I am eternally thankful.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To remember the “May it never be,” today and everyday.

Memory verses for this week:  2 Corinthians 12:7-8 “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from exalting myself.  8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Simeon” (Luke 2:25-26).

Today’s Bible question:  “Which Psalm is known as the Shepherd’s Psalm?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/26/2016 11:49 AM