SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/10/2016 2:03 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Divided Conviction
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 7:30-32
Message of the verses: “30 So they were seeking to seize Him; and no
man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. 31 But many of the
crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, "When the Christ comes, He
will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?" 32
The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief
priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize Him.”
These
verses are a bit confusing as we really don’t have enough information to know
exactly what happened here so we have to try and make an educated guess, but
how this happened does not really matter, what happened is what matters. MacArthur writes “Infuriated by what they
considered blasphemy, His enemies ‘were seeking to seize Him.’ This was evidently a spontaneous effort by
some in the crowd, as opposed to the official attempt to arrest Him described
in verse 32. Why they failed, humanly speaking, to ‘seize’ Jesus is not stated,
but it was likely because many in the crowd were protective of Him (v. 31).”
As stated
how this happened is not as important as to see that it did happen, and so John
gives the divine reason as to why this happened when he writes “no man laid his
hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” We have been looking a timing in this seventh
chapter from the beginning of it when His brothers were trying to get Him to go
to the feast before it was time for Him to go, and so as we look at those words
from John we see here too that it is all about the timing of the Lord, and it
was not His time to die as that had been planed from before the earth was
formed in eternity past and nothing, and I mean nothing would change that. This theme of when Christ would die is seen
in different places in John’s Gospel: “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 (John 8:20).” Now when the time of His death was drawing
near He told His disciples “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be
glorified” (John 12:23). John 13:1 says “Now
before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He
would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in
the world, He loved them to the end.” It
is very important for us to realize that the timing of Christ’s death was very
important to God, for it was no accident that He died exactly when the Passover
lambs were to die, and believe me this was not the time when Satan wished for
Him to die, and not the time when Satan planed for Him to die, but he is not in
charge so Christ died when it was the time for Him to die. John 12:27 says “"Now My soul has become
troubled; and what shall I say, ’Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this
purpose I came to this hour.” John 17:1
says “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said,
"Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify
You.” Let us also look at 1 Cor. 5:7 “Clean
out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact
unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” This shows us why He had to die on
Passover.
MacArthur
writes “Jesus’ exalted claims forced people to decide about Him, and the result
was division. That was exactly what
Jesus had said He would bring. In
Matthew 10:34-36 He cautioned, “34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on
earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 “For I have come to ‘set a
man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law’; 36 “and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own
household.’”
We have
looked at those who wanted to kill Him, but could not and now we will look at
those who were convinced that He was who He said He was as we read “many of the
crowd believed in Him, “and MacArthur writes “Their rhetorical (the question in
the Greek text expects a negative answer) question, ‘When the Christ comes, He
will not perform more signs than those, which this man has, will He?’ explains
what convinced them of Jesus’ authenticity.
They were familiar with Old Testament prophecy, which foretold that the
Messiah would perform miracles (e. g., Isa. 29:18; 35:5-6; cf. Matt. 11:2-5); and
they could not imagine that ‘the Christ’ (Messiah) would ‘perform more signs
that those that Jesus had performed (John 2:23; 3:2; 6:2). The pilgrims from Galilee would have
remembered the wedding where Jesus made wine out of water (2:1-22) and the miraculous
meal where thousands were fed (6:1-13).
And the Judeans would have known about the sic man Jesus healed at the
pool of Bethesda (5:1-9). In addition,
all would have been aware of the multitude of other miracles that Jesus
performed (cf. 2:23; 3:2; 6:2).”
Next we see
again how much influence that the Pharisees had over the people when we read “The
Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about” Jesus and they became
alarmed. Let us look back at verse
thirteen “Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.” Now remember when John uses the word “Jews”
he’s speaking of the ruling parties in Israel at that time. Now we are seeing that not only people were
speaking about Him, but that they believed that He was the Messiah.
We know as
we read through the NT that the Pharisees and the Sadducees were enemies and it
had to with their understanding of Scripture’s as the Sadducees did not believe
in the resurrection or miracles and I suppose that is why they were sad you
see. Well in verse 31 we see they were joining forces to be against Jesus, as
they could handle their differences, but neither group could handle what Jesus
was teaching. This group got together
with the Chief priests and must have had a meeting and the conclusion was to
send guards to seize Him. Once again
this was not going to happen as it was not in the plan of God.
MacArthur
concludes “This section strikingly illustrates the nations’ division over
Jesus. While some were prone to hail Him
as the Messiah and would do so at the start of Passion Week (Luke 19:37-39),
others sought desperately to silence Him.
And the leaders, who should have been the first to recognize His
authenticity, led the effort to have Him eliminated.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is my desire not to do anything to stop
the things that the Lord has planned for my life as we see in 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.”
My Steps of Faith for
Today: To trust the Lord to do the
things in my life that He has planned for me to do, and to love the Lord more,
and to better understand who He is as seen in His attributes.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Paul and Siles” (Acts 16:31).
Today’s Bible question:
“In what two cities did David reign?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/10/2016 2:49 PM
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