SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/10/2017
10:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Intro to John 16:1-11
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 16:1-11
Message of the
verses: “1 "These things I have
spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. 2 “They will make you
outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you
to think that he is offering service to God. 3 “These things they will do because
they have not known the Father or Me. 4 “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when
their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things
I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 “But now I am
going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ’Where are You going?’ 6 “But
because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to
your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not
come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 "And He, when He comes, will convict the
world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe
in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness,
because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning
judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
We have been talking about the prophecy that Jesus makes
in this section, a prophecy that has been and continues to be fulfilled even
today, especially in this 21st century. I want to quote John 3:36 a verse that was
spoken by John the Baptist “"He who believes in the Son has eternal life;
but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides
on him."” This verse tells us that there
are two types of people in this world we live in, the ones who believe that Jesus
Christ died for their sins and have accepted His forgiveness, and the ones who
do not believe this truth. There was and
continues to be war between these two groups of people. Man is born with an emptiness in his soul, an
emptiness to worship and so if man does not find the right Person to worship
then he will worship the wrong thing and that wrong thing is headed up by Satan
as he takes advantage of man’s desire to worship. Jesus says in John 16:2b “but an hour is coming
for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” This fits perfectly in with those who are
worshiping the wrong thing as their “religion” tells them that what true
believers believe is wrong and so they desire to kill them in service to their
religion. Saul of Tarsus is a perfect
example of this as he had killed believers because he thought that his Jewish
religion was right and the believers were wrong, but later on wrote about this
as we have talked about.
You only have to look at the news to find that ISIS is
killing many people who are not Muslims and are purposely targeting true
believers, so this continues the killings that were started by the Jews when
the church began, followed by the Romans, and then the Roman Church. The Communists also had an active role in
killing believers in the last century as many true believers were killed under
Communists leaders, and even today in China the last of these Communists regimes
it is not safe to actively live out your faith.
John MacArthur writes “The theme of persecution, which
Jesus introduced in 15:18-25, continues into the opening section of chapter
16. But as He had done in 15:26-27, the
Lord was quick to remind His disciples that they would not face the world’s
hostility alone. Their witness to the
world would accompanied and empowered by the witness of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit would confront the world, not only
by testifying to Jesus, but also by convicting sinners of their true heart
condition. Because the Helper was coming
to them, the disciples, could remain confident, knowing that though the world
system would always oppose them, many within that system would be delivered
from its darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light (cf. Col. 1:13).” On my study of the book of Colossians I am
looking at Colossians 1:13 at this time.
Much of what we learned in chapter 15 is similar to what
we are learning in chapter 16, although there are subtle differences in
emphasis as John MacArthur points out: “In
chapter 15, Jesus instructed the disciples as to what they were to do (e. g.,
vv. 4, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17-20). But in
chapter 16 He focused on what God would do for them through the indwelling
power of the Holy Spirit (e. g., vv. 1-4, 7, 13-15). He would comfort, strengthen, and aid the
disciples in the midst of their conflict with the world. As Leon Morris writes, ‘The work of the Holy
Spirit in the church is done in the context of persecution. The Spirit is not a guide and a helper for
those on a straight way perfectly able to manage on their own. He comes to assist men caught in the thick of
battle, and tried beyond their strength.
Jesus makes it quite plain that the way before His followers is a hard
and a difficult way.’”
The Holy Spirit’s mission along with the believers is to
bear witness to Jesus Christ as we saw in John 15:26-27. Though God uses Christians to proclaim the
gospel, only the Holy Spirit is able to redeem lost sinners as seen in Titus
3:5 “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in
righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy
Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the
only One who can take a spiritually dead person of which we all are born and
bring about new life to them, a miracle that takes place every day.
The following quote from John MacArthur tells us how this
section can be divided up and how we will study it: “the passage can be outlined around three
distinct but related section: the
conflict with the world, the comforting of the disciples, and the convicting by
the Spirit.” We look forward to studying
this section beginning in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Living all of my
life in the United States I have read
about how people have died for the cause of Christ in other lands, and yet God
has blessed our country from the effects of this persecution. I believe that is because our country has
always supported the Jewish people and the state of Israel which was
established in May of 1948. We have
always given people freedom to worship the Lord in our churches and not
persecuted them if the gospel was brought up in the schools, that is up until a
few years ago when prayer was outlawed in the schools. Satan is working hard to divide this country
and because our President did not veto a resolution in the United Nations a few
weeks ago that went directly against Israel Satan has won another battle. I am praying that the Lord will continue to
have mercy on our country and use our new President to reverse things that have
gone wrong like getting out of the United Nations all together, like putting
the right judges on our Supreme court so the awful practice of killing babies
in the womb will end, giving rights to the unborn as God does. Continue to pray that God will have mercy on
our nation and we as believers will make our requests known to the Lord to stop
the killing of unborn babies, and continue to support Israel.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Pray for our nation.
Memory verse for the
week: (Romans 6:12) “Therefore do not
let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts;
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Nebuchadnezzar” (2 Kings
24:10-16).
Today’s Bible
question: “What is the fifth book of the
Pentateuch?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/10/2017 11:27 AM
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