SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/22/2018
7:47 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2
Jesus: “The Fulfillment of Prophecy”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Acts 13:23-37
Message of the
verses: “23 "From the descendants of this man,
according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, 24 after John had proclaimed before His coming a
baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. 25 “And while John was
completing his course, he kept saying, ’What do you suppose that I am? I am not
He. But behold, one is coming after me the sandals of whose feet I am not
worthy to untie.’ 26 “Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you
who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. 27 “For those
who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the
utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by
condemning Him. 28 “And though they found no ground for putting Him to death,
they asked Pilate that He be executed. 29 “When they had carried out all that
was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a
tomb. 30 “But God raised Him from the dead; 31 and for many days He appeared to
those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now
His witnesses to the people. 32
"And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the
fathers, 33 that God has fulfilled this
promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in
the second Psalm, ’YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’ 34 “As for the
fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has
spoken in this way: ’I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.’ 35
“Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ’YOU WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO
UNDERGO DECAY.’ 36 "For David,
after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and
was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; 37 but He whom God raised did not undergo decay.’”
We ended up yesterday’s SD by talking about how verse 23
is kind of a bridge verse in Paul’s message, bridging together the fact that
Christ is the offspring of David and that prophetically; He was the One whom,
according to promise, God brought to Israel as a Savior. We will now begin looking at the first
prophecy that Paul mentioned and that was about the forerunner to the Messiah,
and that of course was John the Baptist.
Isaiah 40:3-5 tells us “3 A voice is calling, "Clear
the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for
our God. 4 “Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made
low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad
valley; 5 Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, And all flesh will see
it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’” Isaiah has been called a “mini Bible,” and
the reason is that there are 66 chapters in Isaiah and there are 66 books in
the Bible. The Bible is divided up
between the Old Testament which has 39 books, and the New Testament which has
27 books. Isaiah is divided up between
the first 39 chapters and the last 27 chapters beginning with chapter 40. One of the first things we see when we begin
the New Testament is that the gospel writers bring up John the Baptist very
early in all their writings and as we look at these verses from Isaiah we see
his first prophecy from chapter 40 is about John the Baptist.
Another prophecy about John the Baptist comes from
Malachi 3:1 where we read 1 "Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way
before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His
temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is
coming," says the LORD of hosts.”
Both prophecies were fulfilled in the person of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was paving the way for the
Lord Jesus Christ by going out into the wilderness and baptizing people and of
course his baptism was not Christian baptism, but a Jewish ceremonial
cleansing, and this symbolized true, heartfelt repentance, as Paul spoke of in
verse 24 “after John had proclaimed before His coming a baptism of repentance
to all the people of Israel.” John was
making sure that there were clean hearts before the coming of the Messiah.
The Bible tells us that Elijah was to come before the
Messiah and Jesus spoke of this to His disciples when He was asked by them
about the coming of Elijah, and some thought He was crying out to Elijah while
dying on the cross. Jesus told His
disciples that Elijah did come and they did to him whatever they wanted, and the
disciples knew that He was talking about John the Baptist. What about Elijah then? The following are a selection of verses from
the gospel of Matthew which talk about Elijah:
“Mt 11:14 “And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah
who was to come.” “Mt 17:10 And His
disciples asked Him, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come
first?" Mt 17:11 And He answered
and said, "Elijah is coming and will restore all things; Mt 17:12 but I say to you that Elijah already came,
and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also
the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Mt 27:47 And some of
those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man
is calling for Elijah." Mt 27:49 But the rest of them said, "Let us
see whether Elijah will come to save Him."”
Paul goes on in his sermon to let his listeners know that
John the Baptist reported that he was not the Messiah, but that He was coming
and he was not fit to untie his sandals. Untying sandals was the job for the
lowest slave, and this speaks of John the Baptist’s humility. Jesus said of John the Baptist that up until
that time he was the greatest man who ever lived. “11 “Truly I say to you, among those born of
women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one
who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (Mat. 11:11).”
John MacArthur writes “When confronted by Jewish
authorities John clearly distinguished himself from the yet-to-be-revealed
Messiah: “19 This is the testimony of
John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him,
"Who are you?" 20 And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed,
"I am not the Christ." 21 They asked him, "What then? Are you
Elijah?" And he said, "I am not." "Are you the
Prophet?" And he answered, "No." 22 Then they said to him,
"Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do
you say about yourself?" 23 He said, "I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN
THE WILDERNESS, ’MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,’ as Isaiah the prophet said’
(John 1:19-23).” There is one more thing
that I want to bring up about the coming of Elijah and that is that most people
believe that it is Elijah and Moses who will be the two witnesses that are
found in the Revelation 11: 3 “"And I will grant authority to my two
witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in
sackcloth."”
We will continue looking at this portion of Paul’s sermon
in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3).
Today’s Bible
question: “According to John 10:10, why
did Jesus come to earth?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/22/2018 8:27 AM
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