SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/10/2016 7:15 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 The Claim
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 10:25-31
Message of the verses: “25 Jesus answered them, "I told you,
and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify
of Me. 26 “But you do not
believe because you are not of My sheep. 27 "My sheep hear My
voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28
and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of
My hand. 29 "My Father, who
has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them
out of the Father’s hand. 30 “I and the Father are one." 31 The Jews picked up stones
again to stone Him.”
We ended
our last SD talking about God’s sovereignty in salvation, and also man’s
responsibility as these are twin truths, and also impossible to fully
understand in our finite minds, and so we move on today in our discussion of
these verses.
Verse 27
tells us from the mouth of Jesus that those who hear His voice and those that
He knows will follow Him. MacArthur adds
“The elect will heed Christ’s call to salvation and continue in faith and
obedience to eternal glory (cf. Rom. 29-30).”
“29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed
to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He
also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Verses
28-29 should take away any fear of those who believe that one can lose their salvation,
for remember that salvation is a gift of God and since God is immutable, never
changing His mind, then the gift of salvation that is received by the believer
can never be taken away from them.
MacArthur adds “Nowhere in Scripture is there a stronger affirmation of
the absolute eternal security of all true Christians. Jesus plainly taught that the security of
believers in salvation does not depend on human effort, but is grounded in the
gracious, sovereign election, promise, and power of God.”
We will not
begin to look at seven realities that bind every true Christian to God. The first one is that believers are His
sheep, and remember that the duty of the Good Shepherd is to protect His flock
as seen in 6:39 “"This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He
has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” Verse 40 adds “"For this is the will of
My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have
eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.’” Those who believe that salvation can be lost
need to closely look at those verses.
Once again we are looking at several different attributes of God that
come into play here. First of all we see
His sovereignty in His election, then His immutability in that He can never
change His mind, and lastly we can see His omnipotence in that He has the power
to do as He says He will do. You can
also add His truthfulness which goes along with His immutability, for God can
never lie it is not in His character.
Our second
item is that Christ’s sheep hear His voice and follow only Him. We learned in 10:5 “"A stranger they
simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the
voice of strangers.’”
Next we learn that Christ’s sheep have eternal life, and if
one speaks of eternal life ending is a contradiction in terms.
Fourthly we see that Christ gives eternal life to His sheep,
as we understand that believers did nothing to earn their 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).”
Number five is that Christ promised that His sheep will
never perish. Think about if one of His
sheep perished He would be a liar, and that is impossible.
Sixth there is no one who can snatch His sheep out of His
hand. There will be many false teachers
who will tell us that this is possible, and even through the wiles of the devil
this will be taught, but it is not true.
“38 For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created
thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).”
Lastly is that Christ’s sheep are not only held together by
His hand, but they also are in the hand of the Father, and He is greater than
all and thus there is no one who can snatch them out of His hand. “For you have died and your life is hidden
with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).” We are
surely secure in Christ.
Next we
look at the statement that God the Jewish leaders all bent out of shape as
Jesus concludes that believers are safe in His and His Father’s hand by saying “I
and the Father are one.” MacArthur adds “The
Greek word ‘one’ is neuter, not masculine; it speaks of ‘one substance,’ not ‘one
person’). Thus their unity of purpose and action is safeguarding believers in
undergirded by their unity of nature and essence. The whole matter of security is summarized in
our Lord’s own words in John 6:39 and forty.”
We looked at those verses
earlier.
As
mentioned the Jews, because of their misunderstanding of the Scripture, and
unbelief in the truth that Jesus was teaching them thought He was blaspheming
and so they picked up stones to throw at Him.
This is the fourth time in John’s gospel that they have tried to kill
Him, and all for the same reason, and they did this even though we learn in
John 18:31 that the Romans would not allow capital punishment to be done by the
Jews.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I never want to get so angry as to want to
cause physical harm to be done to someone, and as I continue to learn more
about God through the study of His attributes I want to rely on the Lord to
care for all situations that cause me to get overly angered. I realize that there is just anger, when
people do things that are contrary to the Word of God, like killing unborn
babies that I am angry about, but I am not to do harm to any of those who agree
with these killings as one day they will have to stand before the Lord at the
Great White Throne Judgments if they do not come to know Him as Savior and
Lord.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to keep me
calm about what is going on in our country.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:5-7) “5 For is we have become united with Him in the likeness
of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6
knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body
of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7
for he who died is freed from sin.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Samson” (Judges 16:30).
Today’s Bible question:
“Where did the Israelites rebel when Moses commanded them to go into
Canaan?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/10/2016 8:12 AM
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