SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/22/2017
10:22 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Violent Hostility”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 5:33
Message of the
verses: “33 But when they heard
this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them.”
I remember when my mother passed away in late July of
2012 and before that happened I asked her if she wanted me to speak at her
funeral. Mom, like me and many believers
are looking for the rapture of the church and so I entitled the message I gave
at her funeral “Mom’s Hope.” There was a
clear presentation of the gospel in that message and I also spoke briefly about
Mom’s Hope, which was the rapture and I invited our new pastor to come and to
close the service in prayer. Sometime
later he spoke to me and told me that some of the people who were sitting near
him were complaining at the message, the message of hope, the message on how to
make sure that when life is over on this earth that you can be assured to go to
heaven to be with the Lord. People can
get very hostile towards the gospel as seen in our verse for today, as these
Jewish leaders who were in the Sanhedrin wanted to kill the apostles because of
the message they were telling. Our verse
states that “they were cut to the quick” and John MacArthur writes “Diaprio (‘cut to the quick’) appears
only here and in Acts 7:54. It literally
refers to cutting something in two—and apt metaphor to describe the power of
the Word of God (Heb. 4:12). Instead of
yielding to the truth the authorities hardened their heart. As they had done to Jesus (cf. John 5:16; 7:32;
8:59; 10:21; 11:57) in spite of the abundant evidence, they rejected the
apostles’ teaching and violently opposed them as blasphemers.”
The following are some of the reasons that the high
priest and his fellow Sadducees were enraged with the apostles. First of all the apostles had denied their
doctrine by proclaiming the resurrection.
Then they had defiled the Sanhedrin’s authority by preaching after they
had given them orders not to preach in Jesus’ name. Finally, because they won a large number of
converts for the cause of Christ this also threatened the Sadducees’ domination
of the people. I guess you could say
that they were jealous, jealous enough to want to kill them.
MacArthur concludes by stating “Our gospel presentations
must be definitive enough that the world must take note, even if they reject
our message. If the gospel we preach is
not convicting enough to make some men angry, is it convicting enough to bring
them salvation?”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The cubit.”
Today’s Bible
question: “Under what conditions did God
promise Solomon long life?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/22/2017 10:42 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment