PT-2 "They were Robbing God" (Mal. 3:7-8)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/30/2016 1:34 PM

My Worship Time                                                             Focus: PT-2 “They were Robbing God”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Malachi 3:7-8

            Message of the verses:  “7 "From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," says the LORD of hosts. "But you say, ’How shall we return?’ 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ’How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.”

            We have been talking about tithing and I have to say that one of the things that I have been responsible for at our church along with some others is to be a prayer counselor for a program which is entitled “Greater Things” as we are trusting the Lord to change lives in our church as we all come together to give money to the Lord in order to pay off the debt of our church building, to raise money for the work of a translation project for people in Chad Africa, and to also do some needed repairs to our physically.  With this said I can understand how the giving of tithes and offerings is an act of worship to the Lord.  God owns everything and as believers we are stewards of what He owns, as He puts us in charge of what He wants us to be stewards over including the money we make.  As believers the least that we should give is a tithe for that is what people had to do under the Law and we are not under Law but under grace.  God will hold us accountable to the things that we are stewards over as seen in some of the parables of our Lord.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “Over the centuries, many of the Jews committed two errors with regard to the tithe: 1) the legalists obeyed the Law so scrupulously that, like the Pharisees, they even tithed the minute garden herbs (Matt. 23:23-24), all the while thinking that their obedience would earn them righteousness before God; 2) the irreligious neglected the tithe and by disobeying God deprived the temple ministry of what it needed to keep going.  When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem, the temple storerooms were empty of produce and many of the priests and Levites had abandoned their service to go back home and work their fields in order to care for their families (Neh. 13:10).  The people had vowed to bring their tithes (10:24-29), but they hadn’t kept their vow.”

            As mentioned God owns everything and needs nothing and it should be a privilege for believers to give to the Lord, not something we should do grudgingly, but be cheerful givers, thankful for the opportunity that God gives us to be a part of what He is doing on earth.

11/30/2016 1:54 PM

PT-1 "The Pursuit of Peace" (John 14:27d)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/30/2016 10:46 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-1 “The Pursuit of Peace”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 14:27d

            Message of the verses:  “Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.’”

            Now we come to the portion of this verse where as we say “the rubber meets the road” as we have to apply what we have been learning about peace in our lives.  Oh you may say “I thought this was a promise, and all we had to do is claim this promise and it will all be okay.”  I suppose that if you are a believer and have done that you already know that there is more to it than that, so we will try and find out what the more is as we begin looking at this last section of John 14:27.

            John MacArthur writes “There is no inconsistency between Christ’s promise and His command, however.  The Bible teaches that Christians are responsible to appropriate God’s promises.  The Holy Spirit indwells and empowers believers, but they in turn are to be filled with (Eph. 5:18) and walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25).  Christians have been give eternal life; in response they are to ‘consider [themselves] to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11) and ‘present [themselves] to God as those alive from the dead’ (v. 13).  The Holy Spirit is their supernatural teacher (1 John 2:20-27), yet that does not negate believers’ responsibility to study the Scriptures diligently (2 Tim. 2:15).  The same apostle Paul wrote ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20) and wrote ‘Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the ari; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified’ (1 Cor. 9:26-27).”

            Ok that was a rather long quote, but one necessary to understand that we, as believers have a promise and we also have responsibility in having it fulfilled into our lives.  I have to say that when I was studying the book of Mark and came to the passage where Jesus calms a storm and then gets to the land only to meet a demoniac that is actually full of demons and after casting them out the demons who know who He is ask Him not to put them into the pit.  Now at that point of the story I am thinking “yes Jesus throw them into the pit so there will be less demons around to tempt us.”  Jesus allowed them to go into the pigs who after they entered the pigs they all ran down the hill into the lake and drowned.  One may wonder what this has to do with our passage today, but I get the same question about this promise of peace that Jesus gives us as to why you just don’t fill all believers with Your peace.  I guess the answer is that we have a process to go through to learn to grow to become more like Jesus.  Jesus did what He did because no one else could have done it and now we have to do what we do through the power of the Holy Spirit in order for us to become more like Him after all that is part of the sanctification process.

            Let us look at some verses that may help us out “Seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:14b).”  “HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT (1 Peter 3:11).”  This is actually a quote from Psalm 34:14b).  “Those who love Your law have great peace, And nothing causes them to stumble (Psalm 119:165).”  “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee (Isa. 26:3 KJV).”  “"The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You (Isa. 26:3 NASB95).”  “And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever (Isa. 32:17).”  This verse links experiencing peace with living a righteous life.  In 2 Timothy 2:22 Paul tells Timothy to “pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” Notice that Paul tells Timothy to pursue these different things even though we are righteous, we do have faith, and love and peace.  Peter writes the following in 2 Peter 3:14 “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.”  We are seeing what our responsibilities are as we look at these different verses.  We don’t learn from the Bible by osmosis (“a process by which molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, thus equalizing the concentrations on each side of the membrane.”) In other words we can’t lay our heads on the Bible and expect to get something out of it we have to do what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2Tim. 2:15 “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  James writes “17  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. 18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”   Now I have to show you a verse that is not really pleasant to look at as it shows us that we learn more about peace through the discipline of the Lord “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:11).” 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I think the key to learning more about the gift of peace that God gives us is similar to how we learn anything from the Word of God and that is to study the Word of God, be diligent in studying the Word of God and then apply what you learn to circumstances in your everyday life.  It’s not easy and it’s not a sprint but a marathon.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  2 Tim. 2:15.

Memory verses for the week:  (Romans 6:5-7) “5For 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 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 has died is freed from sin.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Today’s Bible question:  “How will the Day of the Lord come?”

Answer in our next SD.  11/30/2016 11:42 AM

PT-1 "They Were Robbing God" (Mal. 3:7-8)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2016 11:23 PM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  Robbing God’s Storehouse

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:7-8

            Message of the verses:  I mentioned in our last SD that we would be moving onto the second main point from Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s outline which he entitles robbing God’s storehouse and the first sub-point which is what we will be looking at this evening after a quick introduction to this main point is entitled “The were robbing God.”

            Now we have mentioned in earlier Spiritual Diaries that what a leader does, in most cases either good or bad, will filter down to the people which is the case of the people in Malachi’s day with the priests as they were not good for the country and so there were people who were following them.  One of the functions of the prophets was that they were sent by God to get the people back on track with what God wanted them to follow because they were not following what He desired of them to do.  This was true of Israel since it began.  These prophets were calling for them to repent and return to God as Malachi was doing.

            Malachi was tell them to repent and return but instead of doing this they began to argue with God and we can see this in different places in his book.  There problem was that they were in denial and God, through Malachi would tell them where they were wrong.

            “7 "From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," says the LORD of hosts. "But you say, ’How shall we return?’ 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ’How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:7-8).”

            Just to let you know this is going to be a rather long commentary on these verses and this will mean that we will do it in a couple of Spiritual Diaries.

            We have already learned when we studied the books of the Law a very long time ago that the meaning of the word tithe is “ten” and this meant ten percent.  There were different tithes that were to be given in the nation of Israel and one of them was used to support the priests and the Levites so that they could do their work in the temple and not have to go outside and work.  They would receive parts of the offerings so that they had food to eat.  There were other tithes that were to be given for they did not have a political government like we have in the United States so that money would be used to help govern the people.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “The annual tithe was given to the Levites (Num. 18:21-24), who in turn gave a tithe of that income to the priests (vv. 25-32).  When a worshiper brought his tithe to the temple, he could us part of it to enjoy a special meal with his family and the Levites (Deut. 12:6-7, 17-19).  Every third year a tithe was to be brought to the leaders locally to be used for the poor (14:28-29).”  With that said we will continue this in our next SD.  11/29/2016 11:42 PM

The Contrast of Peace (John 14:27c)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2016 8:17 AM

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus:  The Contrast to Peace

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 14:27c

            Message of the verses:  “not as the world gives do I give to you.”

            We talked about the source of peace and the presence of peace and learned that the peace that Jesus gave to His disciples and it is the same that He gives to us is a supernatural peace, a peace that is there in spite of our circumstances as it does not matter what circumstance we find ourselves in it is there, and now we want to take some time to compare it with the kind of peace that the world has for us. 

            Perhaps financial gain is what people would say is the greatest peace we can get.  I think of stories that I have read where people have won millions of dollars from a lottery ticket and in the end many or perhaps most of them would say that they wished they had never bought that lottery ticket in the first place and if they had to do it over they would not do it knowing what happened when they won the money.  Conclusion is that money does not bring true peace to you. 

            John MacArthur writes that “Godless people in a godless world are by nature enemies of God and in a state of resultant turmoil.”  We have talked about how believers have peace with God and that comes through the blood of the cross.  “19  For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20  and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven (Colossians 1:19-20).”   The highlighted portion is what I really want you to look at but it is hard for me at times to just copy a small portion of Scripture so I try to copy what is a whole thought to make it more understandable.  This verse speaks of how we as believers have peace with God and the world does not have this kind of peace for they are still enemies with God and if they do not accept His peace which comes through the blood of the cross will have to settle with the poor substitutes that the world has to offer, things like “self-indulgence, materialism, love, romance, substance abuse, false religion, psychotherapy, or a host of other placebos.”

            The following Scripture verses emphasizes that the world’s peace is not adequate:  Isaiah 48:22 “"There is no peace for the wicked," says the LORD.”  Isaiah 57:21 “"There is no peace," says my God, "for the wicked."”  Jeremiah 6:14 “"They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ’Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.”  This verse speaks of the placebo of what the false prophets gave to the people as they were stating that the Lord would not allow Babylon to conquer Judah.  Jesus says the following in Luke 19:42 “"If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.”  The people of Israel had turned down their Messiah who would have given them peace, but now they have been hidden from their eyes.

            MacArthur concludes this section by writing “The world’s peace is only an illusion.  A peace based on temporarily positive circumstances or ignorant escapism is not genuine peace at all.  The reason people lack peace is not emotional, psychological, or circumstantial, but theological.  As noted earlier in this chapter only those who know Jesus Christ can have peace with God and, subsequently, experience true peace in this life.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful for the things that I am learning about God’s peace from this verse that Jesus spoke to His disciples when they were about to go through a time when peace is what they will need as Jesus was about leave them to go to the cross and die for their sins and for all who would come to believe in Him.  I still have much to learn, but God has gotten my attention and for that I am thankful.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to be a willing learner of what God is teaching me.

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 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 has died is freed from sin.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Isaiah.”

Today’s Bible question:  “Quote Genesis 1:1.”

Quotation in our next SD.

11/29/2016 8:52 AM

             

An Unchanging God (Mal. 3:6)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/28/2016 9:23 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  An Unchanging God

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:6

            Message of the verse:  “6 “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.”  “For I am the Lord your God, and I am not changed.”  (Septuagint)

            I am not sure why the Septuagint version does not have all of what the NASB95 version has in it.

            We see one of God’s attributes in verse six and that is that He does not change.  When you are perfect as God is there is no reason to change, and besides that if God would change then He would not be God. 

            The reason for these social abuses is exactly the same reason that we have them in our country and I would say even around the world at this time, and that is that there is no fear of God.  I have written about my feelings about evolution in many of my Spiritual Diaries and said that evolution is first of all an impossibility and second of all it is a religion, of course a false religion at that.  Satan has devised this plan in order to take God out of the picture and so the result of it is that there is now no fear of God for those who follow evolution.

            When one does not worship the One True God then they have to make up their own god and when they do that they will make him like they are.  Psalm 50:21b says “You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you.” 

            I am thankful that God does not change and the Jews should have been happy as well.  God has made promises to Israel that He will keep, promises that as of yet have not been fulfilled, but will be fulfilled in the future, like the coming Kingdom with the Messiah, Jesus Christ leading it. 

            Do you remember when God was so upset with the nation of Israel when He brought them out of Egypt, and Moses, on two occasions reminded God that He does not change for He was about to kill all of them and make another nation from Moses, but that would have violated His promises to Israel and God could not do that.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “The same principle applies to believers today, for 1 John 1:9 states that God is ‘faithful and just to forgive our sins.’  God is faithful to His promises and just toward His Son who died for our sins that we might be forgiven.  (See also Num. 23:19; Deut. 4:31; and James 1:17).”

            As we conclude this first main section in Dr. Wiersbe’s outline we can say that Malachi has already proved that God is just.  In our next Mail Point we will see that he discusses the fact that the people of his day were unjust and the reason that they are unjust is because they have been robbing God, robbing Him of what is rightfully belongs to Him. 11/28/2016 9:43 PM

The Source of Peace (John 14:27b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/28/2016 9:39 AM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  The Source of Peace

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 14:27b

            Message of the verses:  “My peace I give to you;

            For those of you who have been recently following my Spiritual Diaries from John realize that I have been having some difficulties in understanding and communicating about the subject of peace and so this morning before I sat down to look at this next section from the outline in John MacArthur’s commentary on this 27^th verse of John 14 I listened to MacArthur’s sermon on this verse and it did help me out some.  In yesterday’s SD I mentioned the verses in Philippians 4:6-7 which says “6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I also mentioned that when Jesus was in the garden praying to His Father right before His crucifixion that I felt that He was anxious and that these verses were somehow related to what Jesus was going through in the garden of Gethsemane.  MacArthur, in this sermon I listened to stated that as you look at the life of Jesus you never see Him without this supernatural peace that He had until you get to the garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus would be separated from His Father as His Father would be pouring out His wrath on Him, the wrath that we deserved poured out on us and this was why He did not have His peace.

            MacArthur also gave a Biblical definition of peace and as one might expect it does not mean an absence of difficulties for when we look at the life of Jesus we see that His life on earth was full of difficulties.  Sometimes it even got Him in more trouble.  Take for instance when Jesus was standing before Pilate and he told Him that I have the right to crucify You.  Jesus response was that he could only do what His Father would allow him to do and this infuriated Pilate, you see Pilate did not realize that he was only second in command and that God was first in command.  Think about Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison in stocks after they had been beaten and left bloody and yet they experienced that peace of Christ and were able to sing songs of praise to the Lord which resulted in the salvation of the jailer and his family.  

            In MacArthur’s sermon he states that “The Biblical kind of peace is a certain kind of peace that is totally unrelated to circumstances.  It is the goodness of life that is never touched by what is on the outside.”  The Biblical kind of peace is not affected by the circumstances, but it affects the circumstances as we saw in our example of Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison.

            I wanted to go over a word in Philippians 4:7 and that word is “guard” as this peace Paul is writing about “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Believers have a peace that guards our hearts and our minds.  The Philippians knew what this meant as this city was actually a Roman city and because it was a Roman city there were Roman guards around the city to protect it from enemies and so this peace which is the peace that Christ gives to us (14:27b) is a peace that guards our hearts and our minds.  So we can go on to look at this portion of verse 27 at this time.

            We have learned in various verses that God is the God of peace.  Here is a list of some verses that speaks to this:  Romans 15:33; 16:20; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 13:20; cf. Judg. 6:24; Isa. 9:6; 1 Cor. 14:33; 2 Cor. 13:11; 2 Thess. 3:16).  Now because God is the source of all true peace Jesus could say “My peace I give.”  I believe that we could say that this is a supernatural peace, something that non-believers can get, only believers can receive it and we will learn later we have a responsibility to use it.

            This gift of peace is something every Person in the trinity has a part in, similar to salvation, for in salvation the Father chose us before the foundation of the earth, the Son came to die for us, and the Holy Spirit gives us that effectual call that we will not say no to.  We see in the salutations of many of the New Testament Epistles “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  MacArthur writes and this “indicates that God the Father and Jesus Christ are the source of peace.  It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to impart that peace to believers (Gal. 5:22).  Like the rest of the legacy Jesus left the disciples, the ‘peace’ He promised to give them would come in the fullness on the day of Pentecost.”

            Now earlier in this SD we mentioned how Jesus had peace, and it is this same peace that He is giving to His disciples.  I think of a story from the book of Acts that demonstrates how Peter had peace, Christ’s peace.  First we have to go to the 21^st chapter of John where Jesus brought Peter back into the fold by asking him three times if he loved Him.  After that Jesus told Peter how he would die for the cause of Christ, that he would be crucified, which he eventually was.  Now Herod had just killed James, the brother of John and then put Peter in prison and was going to also kill him after some kind of feast they were celebrating.  The church was praying that Peter would be released and so we find Peter in jail asleep.  Peter had the peace that Christ had given him and also the knowledge of knowing how he was eventually going to die and so he just fell asleep not worrying about his circumstances, full of Christ’s promised peace.  Well the rest of the story is that an angel came and rescued Peter and he went to the house of John Mark where the people were praying for him and they did not believe that it was Peter at the door.  Maybe they didn’t have that same peace that Peter had.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I understand that peace is a supernatural gift of God, something that Jesus had, and something that Jesus gives to me and that helps me understand it better.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to learn more about this wonderful gift of peace.

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 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 of sin; 7 for he who had died is freed from sin.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Stephen’s” (Acts 6:9-15).

Today’s Bible question:  “Which OT book predicts Christ’s coming in the words ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given’?”

Answer in our next SD.

11/28/2016 10:33 AM

An Unsparing Judgment (Mal. 3:5)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/27/2016 10:06 PM

My Worship Time                                                                         Focus:  An Unsparing Judgment

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:5

            Message of the verses:  “5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me," says the LORD of hosts.”  “And I will draw near to you in judgment; and I will be a sift witness against the witches, and against the adulteresses, and against them that swear falsely by my name, and against them that keep back the hireling’s wages, and them that oppress the widow, and afflict orphans, and that wrest the judgment of the stranger, and fear not me, saith the Lord Almighty.” (Septuagint)

 

            Before we get started looking at this verse I wanted to take a look at it in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the OT.  In the NASB95 we see the word “sorcerers” and in the Sept. version we see “witches,” and my interest was that in the NT when the word “sorcerers” is used is speaks of drugs being used as the word in the Greek gives us our English word for pharmacy, and so this is a different word in the OT, it is not the word for Pharmacy.

 

            We see a list of sins mentioned in verse five that were prevalent during Malachi’s day and will also be prevalent during the end times before Christ’s return to planet earth.  Sorcery does speak of witchcraft and the Sept. translates it.  This was forbidden in the Law of Moses.  He then mentions adulterers and we know what that means.  Next he talks about who swear falsely by the Lord’s name and Dr. Wiersbe says that this speaks of those who commit perjury by lying under oath, and this violates the third commandment.  He then speaks of the wage earners not getting their pay and also a very big “no no” the sin against the widows and the orphans, those who take advantage of them.  God has special concerns for the widows and the orphans, so it is wise not to do any harm to them.

 

11/27/2016 10:32 PM

PT-3 The Presence of Peace (John 14:27a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/27/2016 9:34 PM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-3 The Presence of Peace

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 14:27a

            Message of the verses:  “"Peace I leave with you;”

            A little review before we look further at this subject of the presence of peace.  John MacArthur writes “Objectively, peace in the New Testament has to do with a person’s standing before God; subjectively, with the believer’s resulting experience of peace in everyday living.”  With that said I can say that I truly believe that I have peace with God and that peace with God comes from the blood of the cross as Paul wrote to the Colossian believers.  Now the subjectively part is probably the harder one to count to be true even though I know it is true for there seems to be plenty of times when I don’t seem to have this peace in my everyday life.  MacArthur goes on to say that “Thus, objective peace is a necessary prerequisite for subjective peace, neither of which are possible for the unsaved person to enjoy.”  I have to say that I am reviewing this because I have had a hard time understanding it and thought that others may be too.

            Paul writes the following in Romans 14:17 to show us that experiential peace is an essential part of the Christians life “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  Paul writes the following in a benediction in Romans 15:13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  2 Thessalonians 3:16 is another benediction given by Paul “Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!”  He wrote to the Galatians that peace was a part of the fruit of the Spirit “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.”  MacArthur concludes this section by writing “Such peace not only manifests itself in private tranquility, but also in harmony with other believers (Mark 9:50; Rom. 14:19; 2 Cor. 13:11; Eph. 4:3; 1 Thess. 5:13; 1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 3:2).”

            I suppose that the presence of peace is a difficult thing to understand perhaps because I have a different ideal of what it is that what the Bible tells me it is all about.  I realize that when I was born that I was an enemy of God, I did not have peace with God, and peace with God was a gift given to me through what Christ did for me on the cross.  The Bible teaches that I still have an old nature or the flesh which is still a part of me and so when I go through difficult times it is not easy for me to understand this presence of peace that we are talking about.  I also understand that when Jesus told His disciples about this peace, peace was not what they were experiencing because of what He told them about going to the cross and dying.  I also realize that they probably did not truly understand the fullness of this peace until the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given to them.

            Paul writes to the Philippians in 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Paul says here that if you are anxious that you are to pray and then goes on to say that God will then give you peace, now that does not mean that He will take your circumstances away from you, but will give you peace to go through it.  I have said in an earlier that I believe that the fulfillment of these verse are seen when Jesus was in the Garden praying before He went to the cross, and God did not take away what He asked to be taken away but gave Him peace to go through what He went through on the cross.  Paul then says the following in verse eight “8  Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”  Perhaps if we all dwelt on these things that peace would be easier to be seen in our lives.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Red Sea” (1 Kings 9:26).

Today’s Bible question:  “Whose face looked like the face of an angel when the council looked at him?”

Answer in our next SD.

11/27/2016 10:03 PM

An Unclean Nation (Mal. 3:2b-4)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/26/2016 10:04 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                 Focus:  An Unclean Nation

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:2b-4

            Message of the verses:  “And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 “He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness. 4 “Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.”

            Once again I remind you that we are looking at a prophecy that will be fulfilled at the second coming of Jesus Christ to planet earth, and things that will happen after He returns into the Millennial Kingdom.  We see that Malachi is asking the question in the last half of the second verse who will be able to stand when the Messiah (the Lord Jesus Christ) returns.  He then goes on to tell us why no one will be able to stand as he describes what He will do when He returns.  Jesus Christ will purify the Jewish nation when He returns so that they will be fit to serve in the Millennial Kingdom.  He will bring a swift judgment on those who are not believers as according to Matthew 25 “Mt 25:32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33  and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.”

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “In the Law of Moses, God provided three ways for people and things to be cleansed and made acceptable to God:  water, fire, and blood.  There is no mention here of blood because Jesus Christ died for sinners at His first coming.  But he would wash the unclean nation like a launderer washes dirty clothes.  He would purify the tribe of Levi the way a jeweler purifies precious metal in his furnace.  ‘In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness’ (Zech. 13:1).”

            Now once all of the nation is cleansed and also the priests are purified then they will be an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord as seen in verse four as it says they will be pleasing to the Lord like they were in the former days.  This is contrary to what the priests were doing in Malachi’s day as we have seen in earlier SD’s.  In those days when the Lord cleanses His priests they will be like what Paul writes to the Romans in 12:1b “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

11/26/2016 10:19 PM

           

PT-2 "The Nature of Peace" (John 14:27a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/26/2016 11:18 AM

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  PT-2 The Nature of Peace

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 14:27a

            Message of the verses:  “"Peace I leave with you;”

            We have been writing about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in our last SD and want to continue looking at that subject as we have learned that His sacrifice is the only way to have lasting peace and that is because we are at war with God.  Let me just say something that I heard on a sermon that I was listening to that goes along with what we are talking about here.  The question comes up what are we saved from.  Some may say that we are saved from sin; some may say we’re saved from the wrath of God, but John MacArthur says that his friend R. C. Sproul says that we are saved from God.  Can you imagine that?  Man is at war with God because of sin that was committed by the first man which makes all of His offspring sinners, born into sin, all still an enemy of God.  God’s desire is to have man be at peace with Him, and yet the only way that sin can be paid for is death, death is the only way we can have peace with God.  Humanly speaking we have an impossible situation; we can never have peace with God.  Well we can be thankful that God had a plan from eternity past to solve this problem for man to have peace with God.  God would send His Son into the world to become a man in order to die on the cross to pay for the sin of those who would accept His sacrifice in order to save us from God.  When you think about this you have to understand God truly love us to do something like this.  I have never thought of this in this way but I do believe what R. C. Sproul says about this.

            Jesus Christ’s sacrifice satisfies God’s holiness which was necessary so there could be peace between sinful men and a holy God, because righteousness and peace are inseparably linked “Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Psalm 85:10).”  God is holy and just and thus requires that a penalty be paid when sinners have violated His Law.  God was satisfied with Christ sacrifice and this is the meaning of the word propitiation which is seen in several NT books.  “21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26  for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26).”

            John MacArthur writes “Though perfectly righteous, Christ was punished in the place of all who believe as though He were a sinner, so that they through faith in Him could be treated as though they were perfectly righteous.  Thus, through Christ’s substitutionary atonement and the imputation of His righteousness to sinful men (2 Cor. 5:21), the enemies of God can become His friends (James 2:23).

“That objective peace of justification results in experiential peace.  This is not peace with God but ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension,’ meaning that it transcends human insight, analysis, and understanding.  This peace ‘will guard [believers’] hearts and [their] minds in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 4:7).  The Greek word translated ‘guard’ is a military term meaning, ‘to keep watch over.’  The peace of God protects believers from anxiety, doubt, fear, and distress.  Thus, it is not passive but active; far from being affected by circumstances, it triumphs over them, turning sorrow into joy, fear into boldness, and doubt into confidence.  This is the peace that Jesus promised to His followers.”

We have one more paragraph to look at and discuss and we will leave that until tomorrow as I like to have shorter Spiritual Diaries to do on Sunday.

11/26/2016 11:59 AM  11/26/2016 1:47 PM

Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to believe that because John MacArthur takes a whole chapter in his commentary on the gospel of John on verse 27 that it has to be very important in his mind, and because of the respect that I have for him, I believe that it is something that I need to study hard at understanding what this is all about.

My Steps of Faith For Today:  I trust that the Lord will help me understand more about this wonderful subject of peace.

Memory verses for the week:  (Romans 6:5-6) “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 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;”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Mary” (Luke 1:34).

Today’s Bible question:  “On what sea was Solomon’s navy?”

Answer in our next SD.

11/26/2016 1:55 PM

An Unprepared People (Mal. 3:1)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/25/2016 10:53 PM

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus:  An Unprepared People

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:1

            Message of the verse:  “1 "Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts.”  “1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts (KJV).”

            We want to begin with the highlighted phrases to show that the people of Israel in Malachi’s day were wanting to see the Day of the Lord, that it would come soon.  Sometimes when you wish for something you may be very unhappy that you get it.  They did not understand exactly what the Day of the Lord was all about otherwise they would not be wishing that it would happen.  When we studied the book of Amos they too were wishing that the Day of the Lord would come, but the Day of the Lord is going to be a day which Jesus tells us in Mt 24:22 “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

            These Jewish remnants were only reading the prophets to see the good things that were going to happen in the kingdom age, and not reading what the horrors of it would be like.  There is much to see in the readings of the OT prophets to show both the good things that will happen during the kingdom age, along with the horrible things that will happen leading up to the kingdom age.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes an endnote on this subject:  “Some of the old editions of the Bible made this same mistake in their chapter headings.  If the chapter was about blessing, the caption read “God’s blessing on the church,” but if it was about judgment the heading said, ‘God’s judgment on the Jews.’  Yet the Bible tells us that ‘judgment must begin at the house of God’ (1 Peter 4:17).”

            Dr. Wiersbe concludes his commentary on this section by writing “These Israelites were not unlike some Christians today who talk about the coming of the Lord as though seeing Him will be more like beholding a visiting celebrity and basking in his or her glory.  Standing at the judgment seat of Christ will be an awesome experience, even though we know that we have a place reserved for us in heaven.”  I so appreciate how Dr. Wiersbe can bring even the OT Scriptures into something that we as a part of the church can benefit from.

11/25/2016 11:12 PM

           

PT-1 "The Nature of Peace" (John 14:27a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/25/2016 10:00 AM

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  PT-1 The Nature of Peace  

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 14:27a

            Message of the verse:  “Peace I leave you;”

            I just posted on my other blog a SD that came from March 12, 2003 on the meaning of Melchizedek’s name and the name of the city he ruled over which was Salem that would become Jerusalem.  Righteousness and peace come together in his name and the city he ruled over.

            I also remember that the first Pastor that I had after becoming a believer mentioned a number of times that there is only one verse in the Bible that has the words blood and peace in it and that verse is Colossians 1:20 “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”  This verse speaks of our Lord giving those who are His own peace and that peace came at a great price, through His blood on the cross.

            All believers have peace with God and this comes through the blood of the cross, and as mentioned yesterday believers can also have the peace that passes all understanding as Paul writes to the Philippians in 4:6-7.  John MacArthur writes “Peace with God, of course, is the bedrock of which all other peace is based.  If there is no peace with God, then there cannot be any real peace in this life.  Thus, objective peace is a necessary prerequisite for subjective peace, neither of which are possible for the unsaved person to enjoy.”

            What is it that caused us to be at war with God?  Well we have to back to the Garden of Eden to understand that and of course sin, sin by Adam and Eve is what caused the human race to be at war with God, and God could have just wiped out the human race once they sinned, but He chose not to do that, God chose to send His Son into the World to die for our sins and thus bring about peace with God for those who have or will accept what Christ did for them on the cross.  There is no one who is neutral for Jesus said in Luke 11:23 “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.”  Paul writes that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  We have to look at that word “all” and it means just that that every person ever born is born a sinner and have fallen short of the glory of God, not 99% but all.

            MacArthur writes “Humanity hates God (cf. John 15:18-19; 1 John 2:16-17), and all who are part of the world system cannot be at peace with Him, ‘You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God’ (James 4:4).” 

            Anyone who has looked at some of the Spiritual Diaries that are found on my blogs knows that there is good news for those who are enemies with God, and that Good News is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and those who have a desire to be at peace with God can have it through the blood of the cross, as Jesus paid it all on the cross for those who desire to have a relationship with God.  It can happen by admitting that you are a sinner, that you sin because you are a sinner, and that Jesus paid it all on the cross so that you can not only have peace with God, but to live with Him in eternity.  Once you have accepted the forgiveness that Christ offers you and you turn your life over to Him eternal life begins at that very moment as before you were lost and not you are saved. 

            We will look at this subject some more in our next Spiritual Diary on the Presence of Peace.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Once a person has experienced the peace that God offers through the blood of the cross he then desires to tell others how to get that peace.  That is what I desire to do, to tell others how they too can have peace with God.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the that the Lord will continue to use the Spiritual Diaries that I write to be used to bring peace to those who do not have it at this time, and through that that Jesus Christ will be glorified.

Memory verse for the week:  (Romans 6:5-6) “5 For if you have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 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;”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Because he was short” (Luke 19:3).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man’?”

Answer in our next SD.

11/25/2016 10:47 AM

An Unannounced Coming (Mal. 3:3)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/24/2016 8:36 PM

My Worship Time                                                                       Focus:  An unannounced Coming

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Malachi 3:3

            Message of the verses:  3 “He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.”

            As I follow the outline from Dr. Warren Wiersbe it seems to me that this section we will be looking at today is under the heading of “The messenger of the covenant”—Jesus Christ” which covers Malachi 3:1b-6.”  I will give a quick introduction to this section before we look at verse three of Malachi chapter three.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes in his introduction “The first prophecy refers to our Lord’s first coming in grace and mercy, but this prophecy speaks of His second coming in judgment.  When He comes, He will prove that God is just by purifying His people and judging rebellious sinners.  Jesus Christ is the ‘Messenger of the Covenant’ in that He fulfilled all the demands of the covenant in His life, suffered the penalties in His death, and rose from the dead to usher in a New Covenant of grace (Jer. 31:31-40; Matt. 26:26-30; Heb 8:6-13).  All the covenant s in Old Testament history unite in pointing to Jesus Christ and His marvelous work of redemption.”

            Now we will move to the very short commentary on verse three which is the focus of our Spiritual Diary for today.

            Now in the introduction we mentioned that we are now talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ, and I want to point out that when we were studying the later portions of the book of Zechariah that that book also had chapters that looked at the first coming of Jesus Christ and then other chapters that looked at the second coming of Jesus Christ so Malachi is similar in that way.

            The second coming of Jesus Christ will be sudden and unexpected and the purpose of this coming will be to judge sinners and then establish His kingdom here on earth.  Jesus told His disciples in the 24^th chapter of Matthew in what is known as the Olivet Discourse “But of that day and hour, no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matthew                           24:36.  Then we can also look at 1 Thessalonians 5:3 which says “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman” (1 Thess. 5:3).

            Now between the first coming of Jesus Christ and the second coming of Jesus Christ back to planet earth there will also be an event that is called the Rapture of the Church which will be the culmination of the church age which began on the Day of Pentecost after the Lord went back into heaven.  So we have to remember that each of these events, the First coming, the Rapture, and the Second coming are different as Jesus first came to die for the sins of the world, and then His coming in the clouds is to bring all the church saints to heaven with Him, and then the Second coming, Jesus comes to judge the earth and set up His Kingdom which will last for 1000 years after which the entire universe will be burned with fire as Peter talks about in 1 Peter 3:10, and then after that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and also a new Jerusalem where all of the saints will dwell for eternity with the triune God.  

11/24/2016 8:55 PM