SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/17/2018 9:19 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Commencement of Paul’s
Testimony”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Acts 26:1-18
Message
of the verses: As noted in the other
SD’s on this subject we will add the verses as we write about them. In our last SD we quoted at the end a
paragraph from John MacArthur that spoke of how the Old Testament spoke of the
coming Messiah and how He came to earth to pay for our sins and then how after
His death was raised from the dead. The
problem was the neither Agrippa nor the Jews understood this truth. We have written about the Sadducees who did
not believe in the resurrection or angels of the like, but the Pharisees did
believe that there would be a resurrection of the dead, but did not believe
that Jesus was the first fruit of this up-coming resurrection. As you read through the gospel you will find
that the religious rulers of Israel ended up bribing the guards who were
guarding the tomb, and they knew that Jesus had arisen from the dead, but the
leaders still did not believe it.
We
know from previous sections in the book of Acts that Paul did not believe that
Jesus was raised from the dead and because of that began to persecute the
Christians until the time when God reached down and saved him as seen in the 9th
chapter of Acts. This is all seen in
verses 9-11 “9 "So then, I thought to myself that I had
to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 "And this
is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in
prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they
were being put to death I cast my vote against them. 11 “And as I punished them
often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being
furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.”
12 "While so engaged as I was journeying to Damascus
with the authority and commission of the chief priests, 13 at midday, O King, I
saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around
me and those who were journeying with me. 14 “And when we had all fallen to the
ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ’Saul, Saul, why
are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 “And
I said, ’Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ’I am Jesus whom you are
persecuting. 16 ’But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have
appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things
which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; 17 rescuing you from the Jewish people and
from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, 18 to open their eyes so that they
may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by
faith in Me (Acts 26:12-18).”
With these verses we see that Paul got to the point that he
wanted to get to, and that is to give out the gospel to King Agrippa and
whoever else was in the audience so that they could understand how they too
could have eternal life through the resurrected Jesus Christ. We will investigate these verses in our next
SD, Lord willing.
Answer to yesterday’s
Bible question: “Goshen” (Genesis
47:27).
Today’s Bible
question: “What prophet succeeded
Elijah?”
Answer in our next SD.
9/17/2018 9:51 AM
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