SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/31/2016
11:40 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 The World Hates Believers Because it does not Know God
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
15:21-25
Message of the
verses: “21 "But all these
things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One
who sent Me. 22 "If I had not come
and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for
their sin. 23 “He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 "If I had not done among them the works
which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and
hated Me and My Father as well. 25 “But they have done this to fulfill the word
that is written in their Law, ’THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’”
I mentioned in our last SD that this section will take
some time to get through, but I really don’t have a problem with that as it is
my desire not to rush through our study of John, but to stop and to understand
the things that John writes so we can better serve the Lord.
We will not look at verse twenty-two in this SD. As we look at verse 22 we have to stop and
think about all the people who had heard Jesus speak, and had seen Him do
miracles like raising the dead after being dead for four days. Think about that for a moment as it was
different when He did these miracles and spoke His Words to the people than it
is today for people today can say that they don’t believe that He did these
miracles of even spoke the words that He spoke, but not then. The people who saw these things have to
answer for not believing in Jesus Christ, I think more than those today who can
read about it, but did not see it. Jesus
told Thomas later on in this book when Thomas refused to believe what the
disciples told him about what they saw about Jesus being raised from the dead “John
20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not
seen, and yet have believed.”
I want to quote from John MacArthur concerning the use of
the word sin in verse 22. “The Lord was
not speaking here of sin in general, but rather of the specific sin of willfully
rejecting Him in the face of full revelation.
That is the most serious sin of all, because it is the only one that is
not forgivable. Having witnessed firsthand
Jesus’ miracles and heard His teaching—both of which testified unmistakably to
His deity (cf. Matt. 7:28-29; John 7:46; 10:25, 37-38; 14:10-11)—the Pharisees’
conclusion was, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the
demons’ (Matt. 23:24). Because they
attributed His miraculous works to Satan instead of the Holy Spirit, Jesus
pronounced their sin to be unforgivable:
‘31
"Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven
people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 "Whoever speaks a word against the Son
of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit,
it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.’
“While that specific sin can no longer be committed,
since Jesus is not physically present on earth, the principle remains the
same. Total rejection in the face of
total revelation is unforgivable, since there is nothing left for God to show such people. In the sobering words of the writer of
Hebrews,
‘4 For in the case of those who have once been
enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers
of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of
the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them
again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and
put Him to open shame (Heb. 6:4-6).”
I have to say at this point that this section from is a
very difficult passage to understand and if my memory is correct I think that
John MacArthur has a different view on these verses than Warren Wiersbe and also
my former pastor, Pastor Jacobs. I
looked back at what I wrote on this passage from February, 27, 2003 and thought
that it may be good to quote it here, but before I do that I have to say that
the point that MacArthur is making here is the line that I highlighted in his
quote, that God has nothing more to show people than His Son and what He did.
“This is a very
difficult passage to understand as evidenced by the many different opinions of
the people that I have read who have their own ideas about the meaning of
it. My own Pastor Jacobs seemed to put
thing in the proper prospective for me to understand what the writer is
speaking about. Pastor Jacobs believes
that this was a very poor place to have a chapter break as the things that were
written about in chapter five seem to flow with these things written in the
first part of chapter six. The writer
has been warning these people that he is writing to about the fact that they
are not growing in the Lord as they should be and that they are wasting time in
their walk with the Lord because of this lack of growth. He could have given them deeper spiritual
truths if they we not stuck in immaturity needing again predigested milk as if
they were babes in the Lord.
“I believe that the writer is trying
to get the attention of these people and thus the strong warning he gives here
to them. It seems clear to me that if
they would not have been in the “mess” that the writer would not have had to
write to them about this and so others in the Church age would have missed out
on this warning that God has for them.
God makes no mistakes and uses all of these problems to help those along
the way who need to read warnings like this one.
“I believe that the writer is saying
to this group of people that they need to stop and take inventory of their
spiritual life and make sure that they indeed are true believers, and it could
be that some of them were not believers; however I do not believe that he was
writing to that group in particular. The
part in verse six that speaks of if they fall away they cannot be renewed again
could mean that while they are in that condition that they could not be
renewed, but once they repent then they can be renewed. There are far to many other passages that say
different. I think of 1John 1:9 which is
speaking to believers confessing their sins and that God is faithful and just
to forgive those sins. However if a
person is just “playing Christian” and continues to sin there will come a time
like in the life of Pharaoh that God will eventually harden his heart. If a believer continues to sin and does not
repent God may take him home “early.”
Paul speaks of this in 1Corinthians eleven on the passage about the
Lords Table.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am
thankful that the Lord has, through His Holy Spirit and His Word who Jesus
Christ is and that He died for me and not lives to make intercession for me in
heaven, and that He will one day, I hope soon, will return to take me to be
with Him forever.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: I will have contentment in the Lord.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Depart
from me: For I am a sinful man, O Lord’”
(Luke 5:8).
Today’s
Bible question: “Who said ‘Behold, the
half was not told me: thy wisdom and
prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard’?”
Answer
in our next SD.
12/31/2016
12:25 PM
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