SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/10/2016 12:23 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Fatal Causes of Unbelief
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 12:37-43
Message of the verses: “37 But though He had performed so many signs
before them, yet they were not believing in Him. 38 This was to fulfill the
word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: "LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR
REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?" 39 For this
reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 40 “HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE
HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE
WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM." 41 These
things Isaiah said because
he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.
“42 Nevertheless
many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were
not confessing Him, for
fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”
I have to
say that this is a series of verses that has had much controversy and as we
look at it we will try and make it understandable. There are those who think that the miracles
that Jesus did were not really performed and so they take out a very important
part of Scripture that according to God is true, for Jesus is God and He
performed the many miracles and as we have been looking at the book of John we
did not see any of the leaders state that Jesus had not performed these many
miracles, but they were wondering what they could do because He was performing
these miracles. They were afraid of Him
because the people who had been listening to them in their false ways of Judaism
now believed in Jesus and they would lose their power over them. Now as we look at verse 37 we see the many
still did not believe in Jesus even though they knew He was performing many
signs in front of them. Then in verse 38
John begins to pull some verses from the book of Isaiah to show why they did
not believe in Him. As we look at this
section we see that the leaders along with many others had made their hearts
hard towards Jesus and thus did not believe in Him. We saw a similar thing happen when God was
using Moses to take His people out of Egypt and what we saw was that Pharaoh
hardened His heart and then because of that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so he
could not believe, but first he hardened his own heart.
1 Cor. 2:14 says “But a natural man
does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to
him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Paul is telling us why the natural man the
man who has not received the miracle of the new birth, that they cannot accept
the things of the Spirit of God, and he goes on to say that they are
spiritually appraised. “But people who
aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish
to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand
what the Spirit means (1 Cor. 2:14 NLT).”
Another thing that we have learned
in our study of the gospel of Mark, and it is also in Matthew’s gospel is that many
of the spiritual leaders in Jesus’ day attributed the miracles that He did to
Satan, and when we get to that part when this happened Jesus began to speak to
them in parables, hiding the truth from them and then explaining it to His own
later on. That was the turning point in
the gospel as these men had committed the unpardonable sin and they could never
be saved. John MacArthur writes “The
fact of unbelief in the face of such irrefutable and powerful evidence makes
clear the limitations of apologetics.
While evidence can be given for gospel truth, the response of the sinner
is not limited to the mind and human reason—salvation requires a regenerated
heart, the work of the Holy Spirit.
“John lists two causes for Israel’s
unbelief, one divine and the other human.
Taken together, they illustrate the interface between divine sovereignty
and human responsibility.”
Now what we will begin to go over
in our next SD is ground we have already covered before, but we will go over it
again as it is a very important way of understanding the plan of God, and
although it is difficult to totally understand, perhaps even impossible, as
believers we have to take things by faith.
It will also be good to remember Deuteronomy 29:29 “"The secret
things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to
our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: We are
living in times that many feel are very close to the end times and as I look at
this verse in Deuteronomy I have to lean on it many times because I don’t
always know what God is doing, but I do know that He knows what He is doing and
what He is doing will be good for me and bring glory to Him.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to work out
what He is going to work out in our country, as He is in total control.
Memory verse for the week again (Romans 6:13) “and do not go
on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of
unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God, as those alive from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Hebrew 11.”
Today’s Bible question:
“Before the days of the kings, when judges ruled over Israel, which
judge was a woman?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/10/2016 12:59 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment