SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/30/2016 7:30 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Doubting
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 8:52-58
Message of the verses: “52 The Jews said to Him, "Now we know
that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ’If
anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’ 53 “Surely You are not
greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You
make Yourself out to be?" 54 Jesus answered, "If I glorify Myself, My
glory is nothing; it is My
Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ’He is our God’; 55 and you have not come to know Him, but I
know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.
56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was
glad." 57 So the Jews said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old,
and have You seen Abraham?" 58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I
say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’”
We looked
at verse 51 in our last SD which says “"Truly, truly, I say to you, if
anyone keeps My word he will never see death."” We know that what Jesus was saying to them
spoke of Spiritual death, and like other times in the gospel of John the Jews
mixed up the physical and the spiritual, which is what they did this time as
seen from their answer “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and
the prophets also; and You say, ’If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste
of death.’ 53 “Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died?
The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?"” Keeping the Spiritual and the physical is
very important as we have seen through different places in the book of
John. MacArthur writes “Neither the
revered patriarch Abraham nor any of the prophets had the power to defeat
death, since they had all died. Flinging
Jesus’ own words back at Him, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of
death,’ the Jewish leaders indignantly demanded, ‘Surely You are not greater
than our father Abraham’ or ‘the prophets’ who ‘died; whom do You make Yourself
out to be?’ Or, ‘Just who do You think
You are?’ The tone of their questioning
is obviously abusive; they were sure that only a demon-possessed person could
make such an outlandish claim.”
Jesus
answer to this was to repeat what He had said in verses 49-50 which says “49 Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon;
but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. 50
"But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.” Jesus answer now is “If I glorify Myself, My
glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me.” As mentioned in our last SD Jesus knew what
the plan of the Father was for Him, and by doing what His Father desired Him to
do would bring glory to Him as the Father would glorify Him through the keeping
of His plan for Him. MacArthur adds “Jesus’
claims were not those of a demoniac or a maniac, because the glory He possesses
was not evil or satanic, but divine. It
was His by His eternal relation to His Father (17:24)—the very One of whom the
Jewish leaders said ‘He is our God.’ For
them to piously claim to know God while blaspheming and rejecting His Son was
ludicrous. Therefore Jesus, pointing out
the obvious again, plainly told them, ‘You have not come to know Him.’ Despite their outward pretense, they did not
know God; they were children of Satan (v. 44).
Their delusion was that they were God’s children and that Jesus was in
league with the Devil (cf. Matt. 12:24).”
Jesus did
not back down as He states “but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know
Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.” By saying that He did not know the Father
would make Him out to be a liar, and this is something that is impossible for
God to do for it is not in His nature like it was in the nature of Satan whom
Jesus said of Him “Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for
he is a liar and the father of lies (44b).”
Now, to me
this next statement that Jesus makes is very important for me to understand and
so once again I will quote from John MacArthur.
“In contrast to their rejection of Him, the Lord told them, ‘Your father
Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.’ Hebrews 11:13 records that Abraham saw and
welcomed Christ’s day, ‘All these died in faith, without receiving the
promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and
having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.’ He saw in his son Isaac the beginning of God’s
fulfillment of His covenant with Him (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:1-21; 17:1-8), which
would culminate in the coming of the Messiah.
Once again (cf. vv. 39-40), Jesus contrasted His opponents’ behavior
with that of their patriarch, proving that they were not Abraham’s spiritual
children. They wanted to murder the very
One in whose coming Abraham rejoiced (cf. v. 37).” My thoughts on Abraham rejoicing to see
Christ’s day were that they must have talked about it after Abraham died, but
what MacArthur and also Dr. Wiersbe said (which I quoted in an earlier SD), make
more sense to me now. Another thing that
came to my mind was what we read about when the Lord came down to talk with
Abraham along with two angels who were sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. During that time we see that the preincarnate
Jesus Christ was the one talking to Abraham.
This happened in Genesis chapter 18.
The next
thing that these Jewish leaders said to Jesus was “You are not yet fifty years old,
and have You seen Abraham?” The Jews
were twisting His Words for Jesus did not say that He saw Abraham, but that
Abraham rejoiced (prophetically) to see Him.
The next
statement that Jesus makes is a direct claim to be God, and we can go back to the
book of Exodus to see the name that Jesus was claiming to be. “13 Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I
am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ’The God of your
fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ’What is His name?’ What
shall I say to them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and
He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ’I AM has sent me to
you’ (Exodus 3:13-14).” This name for
God was one that the Jews would not even speak for fear that they would blaspheme
against God which would break the first of the Ten Commandments. We usually see the word “Jehovah” in our
English Bibles or it is also referred as Yahweh, however in the Hebrew there
are no vowels in it because there are no vowels in the Hebrew language. At any rate Jesus had just told these Jews
that you are looking right into the face of God, the very God you say that you
know. John MacArthur quotes Homer Kent
who explains “By using the timeless ‘I am’ rather than ‘I was,’ Jesus conveyed
not only the idea of existence prior to Abraham, but timelessness—the very
nature of God himself (Exod. 3:14).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to admit that there have been far too
many times in my life when I have jumped to the wrong conclusions and it has
gotten me into trouble. Unfortunately
for these Jews that were talking to Jesus that is what they did. As I am growing older I am trying not to jump
to conclusions but wait and think before I open my mouth.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Think before I speak.
Memory verse for today (Romans 6:1) “What shall we say? Are
we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “John the Baptist” (Mark 1:6).
Today’s Bible question:
“In which book is the story of Gideon told?”
Answer in our next SD.
A little
note from where I am getting these Bible questions: They come from a game that I have had for a
long time, and on each card there are seven questions so it takes one week to
look at the questions on each card. The
question a couple days ago was “Where was it said ‘The Lord watch between me
and thee, when we are absent one from another?”
The answer according to what was on the card was “Mizpah.” I have been asked to explain the answer, but
I think after doing a little research that the answer given on the card is a
bit misleading. Let me quote from my Spiritual
Diary on Jan. 26, 2006 ““47 Laban named it in Aramaic, Yegar-sahadutha (Witness Monument );
Jacob echoed the naming in Hebrew, Galeed (Witness Monument
48 Laban said, "This monument of stones will be a
witness, beginning now, between you and me." (That’s why it is called
Galeed—Witness Monument
51 Laban continued to Jacob, "This monument of stones
and this stone pillar that I have set up is a witness, 52 a witness that I
won’t cross this line to hurt you and you won’t cross this line to hurt me.”
Both Jacob
and Laban give names, which mean the same, to this monument and its meaning is
“Witness Monument
I am not
exactly sure why it is that Laban is actually acting like he has a bit of
sense, but he does want Jacob to take care of his daughters and not to marry
any other women, so I guess that there may have been a spark of good in Laban after
all. I don’t think that this is why
Laban had set out to get to Jacob and his family, but God protected Jacob in
order to protect the covenant that God had made with Abraham, a covenant that
was confirmed when the Lord alone walked through the burning sacrifices and so
this covenant was an unconditional covenant that God made with Abraham and so
He could not let it be broken.
My
conclusion that Mizpah is not really a place, but the name of the heap of
stones which make up a covenant between Laban and Jacob.
6/30/2016 8:35 AM
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