SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/25/2017
7:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Be Obedient to God at All Costs”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 4:14-22
Message of the
verses: “14 And seeing the man who
had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. 15 But when they had ordered them to leave
the Council, they began to confer with one another, 16 saying, "What shall
we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place
through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. 17
“But so that it will not spread any further among the people, let us warn them
to speak no longer to any man in this name." 18 And when they had summoned
them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered and said
to them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you
rather than to God, you be the judge; 20 for we cannot stop speaking about what
we have seen and heard." 21 When they had threatened them further, they
let them go (finding no basis on which to punish them) on account of the
people, because they were all glorifying God for what had happened; 22 for the
man was more than forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been
performed.”
Now as I look at this passage, and how the Jewish leaders
handled this situation I realize that it was the Lord who was surely in control
as there was nothing done to Peter and John.
Yet as we move forward in the book of Acts we will see that the next
step by the Jewish leaders was to have some of the apostles beaten, and then
the next step was to have the apostle James (not the Lord’s brother) killed and
Peter would escape with his life as an angel let him out of prison. This was the beginning of the persecution of
the church that has gone on since this time, and yet the church, the real
church still lives on in spite of much persecution. The real church tells the truth, the truth that
Jesus came into the word of man to die for the sins of the world so that all
who believe in Him, realize that they are sinners and in need of a Savior can
find forgiveness in Him. The world hates
this message and has done and will continue to try and stop it, however it will
fail and one day the hope of the church will be realized and that is the
rapture of the church as found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 “13 But we do not
want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you
will not grieve as do the
rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and
remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen
asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will
rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with
the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.” Paul also wrote to Titus that this is our
hope. Peter and John knew this hope and
that is why they did what they did, that is why they were obedient to God at
all costs, and why so many others since the church began have done the same,
and will continue to do the same until the Lord comes to take us to be with
Him.
The Jewish leaders had seen the results of this miracle,
as the people were giving glory to the Lord, and this is similar to what
happened when our Lord was on earth doing miracles that were noticed by
everyone in Judea at this time. Now these
apostles of Jesus were doing the same works of God and these same Jewish
leaders were having the same problems. I
think that the biggest problem they had was that they were losing power, power to
control the people. As I have been
studying 2 Peter chapter two which speaks of apostates I can see that these so
called religious leaders of Israel at this time were nothing but apostates,
apostates who were not willing to lose power over the people, but at this point
did not know what to do about it other than to tell these apostles not to speak
in “this name” again.
John MacArthur writes “Peter and John did not vacillate
but immediately answered that they would refuse to obey the Sanhedrin’s
command. The appealed to a higher court
by asking the question of ‘whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed
to men rather than to God’ before the supreme court of Israel (cf. Acts
5:29). Which court is higher? By such an appeal to the divine judge the
apostles impaled the Sanhedrin on the horns of a dilemma. They certainly did not want Peter and John to
continue to speak, yet they could hardly tell them to obey men instead of
God. Peter again indicated them for
being the enemies of the God they professed to represent.”
We will pick up on the subject of believers obeying their
government, which goes along with what we are talking about here, in our next
SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: The more that I
study the Word of God the more I understand that mankind will do what they want
to do in order to make themselves look good as this is a part of the sin nature
we all received from Adam. It is a
spiritual fight that every believer has in one part of their life or
another. All I can say is that I am
thankful to the Lord that I know the truth and will grow in my faith as I stay
in the battle.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to give me wisdom as I begin
to prepare my Sunday school lesson for this up coming week.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Christ” (Colossians 3:1).
Today’s Bible
question: “In order to teach, Jesus
entered into whose boat?”
Answer in our next SD.
9/25/2017 8:39 AM
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