SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/3/2016 9:11 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 The Answer
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 8:14-19
Message of the verses: “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."”
As
we go through these “arguments” that the Pharisees bring against our Lord we
can see that they are not as smart about the Law as they think that they
are. I have highlighted the words “the
flesh” and Jesus said to them that this is how you are judging. The Pharisees were involved in a “false
religion” but what they were reading as far as the Word of God was true, but
their problem is that they were not believers and therefore could not
understand what they were reading. Jesus
answer in response to their statement of single testimony, which is what they
got out of the Law, was “Even if I testify about myself, My testimony is true.” Of course it is true for He is God come in
the flesh and it is impossible for Him to lie or to sin, but they, in their
flesh, did not understand this. We have
to get over thinking that these Pharisees were living and teaching the truth,
for they were not and that is why our Lord was on them, because they were
teaching false “religion” to the people and they were the ones who were making
out as far as racking in the money from their false religion like what is going
on today with false teachers.
John
MacArthur writes “The demand for two or three witnesses was a means for
establishing the truth in a court of law.
What Jesus said was the truth in utter perfection, since God is true
(Rom. 3:4; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). Still,
He gave His enemies three evidences to support His self-testimony as the truth,
each related to His deity—the very thing that scandalized them the most.” We will look at the first evidence in our SD
for today and then it is my desire to look at the last two in our next SD.
The
first evidence was the fact of His divine origin and His destiny. Now as we read through this and other
sections from John’s gospel we see that the Pharisees were ignorant of both His
origin and His destiny. Because of these
two evidences Jesus was qualified to testify about Himself, however they were
not. “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.” We see both of these evidences in this short
statement. Let us look at John 16:28 “"I
came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world
again and going to the Father."”
MacArthur writes “His self-knowledge and divine omniscience (cf. 2:25;
16:30; 21:17) thoroughly confirmed His testimony.”
The
Pharisees did not know where He came from or where He was going to return to
for they did not take the time to find out about where Jesus was born and how
it was that He ended up in Nazareth, and as they read and studied their Law
them missed all of the prophecies about the first coming of Jesus Christ. I have a older book that was written by Hal
Lindsey entitled “The Promise” and in that book he teamed up with an artist who
painted pictures of some of the different prophecies that took place in the
life, death, burial, an resurrection of Jesus Christ. He writes the following in this book “Prophecy
itself is not unique to the Bible.
Hundreds of psychics and religious seers have made predictions of the
future during their lifetimes and some have had a degree of accuracy. But what is unique to the Bible is that it
has been 100 percent accurate in every prophecy
fulfilled to date.
“I
realize that’s an enormous statement to make and unfortunately the limited
space here won’t permit me to take theses hundreds of Biblical prophecies and
demonstrate their accurate fulfillment.
I have selected, however, about 36 of the more than 300 predictions in
the Old Testament which relate to its most important prophetic theme, the
promise of a Messiah-deliverer who would be sent by God to create the Kingdom
of God on earth, restore the Jews to their land and bring all men and nations
into an earthly and eternal peace.”
Now
the Pharisees had the same Scriptures that Lindsey writes about in this book,
and yet because of their greed from power and money and their pride, and most
of all because of “their flesh” they missed these prophecies about Jesus
Christ.
We
have already mentioned His next statement “You judge according to the flesh,”
and will not write any more about this statement but will move on to the next
statement “I am not judging anyone.”
MacArthur writes “He may have meant that He did not judge according to
the flesh (superficially, externally) like the Pharisees did…Or the Lord may have
meant that He did not judge anyone yet, since ‘God did not send the Son into
the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.’ In the future, however, Jesus will judge, ‘For
not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son’
(5:22; cf. v. 27; 9:39; Matt. 16:27; 25:31-46; Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom. 2:16; 2
Tim. 4:1).” As we studied the book of
Revelation last year we saw that the three different sets of seven judgments came
from the Lord as He was purging the earth with these judgments.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I read through the gospel of John I see
the great courage that Jesus demonstrated when coming up against the evil that He
faced and this shows me that I too can do the same as the Lord leads me to do
so.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I
desire to trust the Lord to give me the right words to say this coming Sunday
as I talk about the class that I am to teach beginning the following Sunday.
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: “Israel.”
Today’s Bible question: “How did Rehab mark her house so she would be
protected when Jericho was captured?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/3/2016 10:09 AM
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