SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/18/2016 10:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Confused
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 7:45-49
Message of the verses: “45 The officers then came to the chief
priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, "Why did you not bring
Him?" 46 The officers answered, "Never has a man spoken the way this
man speaks." 47 The Pharisees then answered them, "You have not also
been led astray, have you? 48 “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed
in Him, has he? 49 “But this crowd which does not know the Law is
accursed."”
Just a
short reminder to say that we are in the process of looking at the different
responses to what the Lord Jesus Christ said on the last and great day of the
feast, and today we are looking at those who are confused, and might I add that
confusion can be a good thing, for confusion can led to conviction which is a
better thing.
I have come
to think about verse forty-six a lot over the last few weeks as it seems that
the Holy Spirit has brought this verse to my mind and even opened up to me more
meaning, so I suppose that one could say that I have been meditating on this
verse for as you think about the words “Never has a man spoken the way this man
speaks” I believe that you have to think of not just what He said at the feast,
but all of the Words that Jesus spoke, for when you look at it that way then
there is no way you cannot disagree with what these soldiers said, for Jesus is
God come in the flesh and everything about Him is and always will be perfect so
that means His Words are perfect. When
we speak we may have alternative motives, or put spin on what we are saying, or
if I go back to my pre-Christian days there was a lot of “four letter words”
that I used, but that is because I am human and that is because I was born in
sin as David says, but Jesus was not born in sin for His Father was God and His
mother did not pass on the sin nature for she was the “seed of woman” as stated
in the third chapter of Genesis and verse fifteen. Think about this when you are reading the
Word of God, especially the Words of Jesus.
Now we have
been looking at some of the people in the crowd who had been listening to Jesus
and I don’t know if these temple police who had been sent earlier to get Jesus
by the Pharisees earlier as seen in verses 14, 32, and 37, so perhaps they had
not heard what the Lord said but they had to hear something from Him in order
to say what they said in verse 46. As the
Pharisees asked these men why they did not bring Jesus to them we see the
answer in verse 46. John MacArthur
writes that “They were religiously trained Levites, and Jesus’ words left them
stunned. While they did not accept Him
as the Messiah, neither die they openly reject Him. They did not know what to do with Him. Caught between the power and grace of His
message and the hatred of their leaders, they were paralyzed into inactivity.”
Next we see
another question the Pharisees give to these men “You have not also been led
astray, have you?” Now that shows the
problem of one who has already had his mind made up and is unwilling to think
that possibly Jesus was the Messiah. I
have spoken to people from different cults who came to my do to peddle their poison
and showed them from the Word of God that Jesus Christ is Eternal God, the
creator of all that is created and because of their false brain washing they
don’t even want to consider that what I am say, well what the Word of God is
saying is truth, same with these Pharisees, as they could be saying “my mind is
already made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.” You get the idea that these Pharisees were
making fun of these men something like they were doing to the man born blind in
chapter nine.
Next we see
them tell these men “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has
he.” As you read through the NT you will
only find two Pharisees who came to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior and
that would be Nicodemus and Paul, so this shows that they were very hard
hearted men.
John
MacArthur writes the following about verse 49:
“The Pharisees continued by deriding the common people as ‘this crowd
which does not know the Law.’ (The Law
was a reference both to the Old Testament and, especially, the rabbinic
traditions.) The Pharisees viewed
themselves as the spiritual elite; men who were above the possibility of being
wrong about religious matters. In their
minds, only those who were gullible, uneducated, and simple-minded could be
deceived by Jesus’ claims. Such people
were ‘accursed,’ according to the Pharisaic perspective, for their ignorance of
God’s law.
“In
ridiculing the crowd, the Pharisees implicitly appealed to the officer’s pride
and desire for prestige. The officers
had a crucial decision to make. They
could either reject Jesus and be applauded by the apostate religious
establishment, or believe in Him and be castigated with the redeemed. John does not record what choice the officers
ultimately made.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I desire to pay more attention to the Words
of the Lord Jesus as no one has ever spoken as He has.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Learn more from my study of
the Attributes of God so I can know more about Jesus, and to love the Lord more
as I read more about Him from His Word.
Memory verse for the week:
2 Corinthians 12:7 “Because of the surpassing greatness of the
revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given
to me a throne in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me-to keep me from
exalting myself.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Capernaum.”
Today’s Bible question:
“Whom did Herod put in prison and deliver to four quaternions of
soldiers?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/18/2016 11:10 AM
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