SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/18/2018
9:52 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1
Jesus: The Culmination of History
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
13:17-22
Message of the
verses: “17 “The God of this people
Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the
land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out from it. 18 “For a
period of about forty years He put up with them in the wilderness. 19 “When He
had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He distributed their land as
an inheritance-all of which took about four hundred and fifty years. 20 “After
these things He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 21 “Then they asked
for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of
Benjamin, for forty years. 22 "After He had removed him, He raised up
David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ’I HAVE
FOUND DAVID the son of Jesse, A MAN AFTER MY HEART, who will do all My will.’
John MacArthur begins this portion of his commentary
talking about where is history going to end, which is a question that people
sometime ask, but can’t find an answer unless they are looking in the Word of
God. Is there meaning in the everyday
world that we live in or is there just endless days and nights going by until
someone builds a weapon that will destroy all of mankind. MacArthur writes “But despite such cynicism
and despair, history is going somewhere.
And every Jew and Gentile proselyte in Paul’s audience knew exactly
where: to its culmination in the coming
kingdom of Messiah. Man’s fellowship
with God, shattered by the Fall, would be restored when Messiah came and
delivered men from the bondage of sin.
History would ultimately resolve itself in the redeemed being back in
full fellowship with God and giving Him glory.
Jesus’ incarnation and sacrificial death, His second coming to set up
His earthly, millennial reign, and His eternal rule over the new heavens and
new earth are the climax of history.”
As you read through the book of Acts you find out that
the preachers found in it know their audiences and such is the case we find
here. Paul wanted to tell these Jews who
their Messiah was, but he knew his audience as he was getting their attention. He did this by addressing a topic dear to the
hearts of his countrymen, which was God’s providential care for Israel.
The history of that care that God has for Israel when the
God of this people Israel chose their fathers, which of course were Abraham,
Isaac, and then Jacob who fathered all the different men who would become the
tribes of Israel. God is and always has
been in complete control of History, and we were learning this just this
morning in our Sunday school class when we looked at the “throne” of God in
Revelation chapter four. There is a
quote from John MacArthur that I will use in conclusion of this SD, and in this
quote he writes about the throne of God and what it represents. “This was not a piece of furniture, but a
symbol of God’s sovereign rule and authority (cf. Pss. 11:4; 103:19) located in
the temple in heaven (cf. 7:15; 11:19; 14:15, 17; 15:6-8; 16:17). According to Revelation 21:22 the heavenly
temple is not an actual building: ‘the
Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb’ are the temple. The use of the term temple symbolizes God’s
presence. The throne was said to be
standing because God’s sovereign rule is fixed, permanent, and unshakable. A vision of God’s immovable throne reveals He is in permanent,
unchanging, and complete control of the universe. That is a comforting realization in light of
the horror and trauma of the end-time events about to be revealed (chap.
6-19). In much the same way, Isaiah was
comforted during a traumatic time in Israel’s history by his vision of God’s
glory (Isa. 6).”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Tyre” (1 Kings 5:1).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who prayed at the dedication
of the temple?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/18/2018 10:13 PM
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