SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/8/2016 7:54 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Confrontation
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 10:22-24
Message of the verses: “22 At
that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; 23 it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the
temple in the portico of Solomon. 24 The Jews then gathered around Him, and
were saying to Him, "How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the
Christ, tell us plainly.’”
The first
thing that we want to identify is what the Feast of the Dedication is, and the
first thing we need to know about it is that it was not one of the feasts that
was spoken of in the OT Law. This Feast
of Dedication is in the winter time, it would be in our month of December and
it was an observance of what happened when the wicked leader Antiochus, king of
Syria was bringing about great persecution to the Jewish people living in
Jerusalem. He hated the Jewish people
and their religion, and as we have discussed this before this hatred comes from
Satan who is behind all of the hatred against the Jewish people, even what is
going on in our world today. John
MacArthur writes: “After three years of
guerilla warfare the Jews, under the brilliant military leadership of Judas
Maccabeus (the son of Mattathias), were able to retake Jerusalem. On 25 Chislev 164 BC, they liberated the
temple, rededicated it, and established the Feast of Dedication.” I you desire to know more about this story it
is in the book of 2 Maccabees 10:1-8.
Out of this
revolt became this feast, a feast that is still celebrated today and is called
Hanukah, of The Feast of Lights.
The book of
Daniel speaks about this man Antiochus as he is a type of the Antichrist who
will come during the Tribulation period as seen in chapters 6-19 of the book of
Revelation. Antiochus sacrificed a pig
on the altar in the Jewish temple, and the Antichrist will do something similar
when he comes which will be done in the middle of the tribulation period.
During this
celebration Jesus was walking in the temple specifically in “the portico of
Solomon,” which was a part of the temple that was covered with a roof and this
provided a measure of protection from the elements. MacArthur adds “it was a roofed colonnade
supported by pillars, located on the east side of the temple area and
overlooking the Kidron Valley below.” We
read the following from the book of Acts “While he was clinging to Peter and
John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon,
full of amazement.” “At the hands of the
apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; and they
were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico (Acts 3:11 and 5:12).” This shows that witnessing for the Lord was
done in this place.
If you are
into metaphors there are some who think that because this was done in the
winter time that it referred to the Jewish Spiritual condition. Gerald L. Borchert writes “The thoughtful
reader of the gospel understands that time and temperature notations in John
are reflections of the spiritual condition of the persons in the stories (cf.
3:2; 13:30; 18:18; 20:1,19; 21:3-4).”
As we look
at verse 24 where it says that the Jewish leaders gathered around Jesus, the
verb, according to MacArthur “literally means ‘to surround,’ or ‘to encircle’
[cf. Luke 21:20; Acts 14:20; Heb. 11:30]) and demanded of Him, ‘How long will
You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ,
tell us plainly.” As we look at this
question we can see that it is the right question, but we also can be sure it
was asked with the wrong motive. There
was a time when I was working on a job a few years back and I had to take one
of the men home for some reason, and on the way to his house he started asking
me questions about what I believe to which I was excited to tell him. However this was all done in the wrong motive
as it was a set up from the other workers to make fun of my beliefs. This was much worse in this case we see here
in John’s gospel as these leaders wanted to hear Christ tell them that He was
the Christ, the Son of God so that they could kill Him, something we discussed
in our last SD. You have to admire the
way Jesus handled this as we will see as we continue to move forward in this
narrative. Jesus was not only a man, but
a man’s man who had no fear of doing what He was sent here to do, and for that
I am thankful. MacArthur writes the following
about the word “plainly” as it “can also be translated ‘publicly or ‘openly’
[7:4, 13, 26; 11:54; 18:20]) that He was the Messiah, so that they would have a
pretext for arresting Him.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I truly admire people like Judas Maccabeus
who were doing what he realized what God desired him to do, showing great
courage and even willing to die for his faith.
Our country is beginning to look like that this could happen in it and
in some cases has already happened. I think about this at times and what I
think about is a story from Corie Ten Boom who hid Jewish people during WWII
and knew that she would probably get caught by the Germans and go to prison and
possibly die for her faith in Jesus Christ.
She was concerned as one could imagine so her father asked her a
question “When do you get the ticket from me to board the train? He reply was “when I am about to get on the
train.” God’s grace is given to us each
day as much as we need it for what we are going through, as we don’t get His
grace today for what we need tomorrow.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Remember the story I just
wrote about.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:5-7) “5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness
of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection; 6
know 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 has died is freed from sin.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Sin” (Romans 7:14).
Today’s Bible question: “The ruler of the synagogue was
angry because Jesus healed on what day?
Answer in our next SD.
8/8/2016 9:00 AM
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