SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/8/2018
10:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Paul’s Introduction
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Acts 28:17-20
Message of the verses: 17 After three days
Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they
came together, he began saying to them, "Brethren, though I had
done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was
delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. 18 “And
when they had examined me, they were willing to release me because there was no
ground for putting me to death. 19 “But when the Jews objected, I was forced to
appeal to Caesar, not that I had any accusation against my nation. 20 “For this
reason, therefore, I requested to see you and to speak with you,
for I am
wearing this chain for the sake of the hope of Israel."”
As we go back to when Paul was on his missionary journeys
we saw as soon as he went into a town the first then that he did was go
directly to a synagogue if there was one present in the town he came into. We see that Paul wasted no time to talk to
the Jews as he probably summoned men from the synagogue and they would be prominent
men he wanted to talk to. Another thing
that we can remember from his missionary journeys is that it was the Jewish
people who caused him much of the trouble that he faced, and yet Paul still had
a great love for the Jewish people as he was a Jew himself.
I suppose that you could say that Paul would have to
chose his words very carefully in order to explain why he was in Rome and also
why he was in chains, something that has happened a lot during the last years
of Paul’s life, and yet he felt and stated that the chains were for the cause
of Christ, and although he would have rather not had them he was not ashamed of
them for he knew that this was the plan for him from our Lord Jesus Christ.
In so many words Paul was saying that it was the Sanhedrin
who were the ones who had caused him to be in chains as they were accusing him
of things that he had not done and so as we go on in this section we will see
that Paul had no choice but to appeal to Caesar, which is why he was now in
Rome. Paul supported his claim of being innocence
by telling the Jews that even the Romans had not found anything he had done
wrong to cause him to be put to death.
We have already learned that if Paul had not appealed to Caesar that he would
have been set free. The Romans were
wrong in holding Paul so long, and they would someday have to answer to God
about that, and yet it was in the plan of God for Paul to go to Rome. This brings up some interesting things that
perhaps we have gone over before. When
we studied the book of John we saw that Judas was prophesized in the OT to
betray Christ. His name was not given
but what he did was prophesized that he would do it. Jesus said that it would have been better if
he had not been born. What we see here
is that it was in the plan of God for Judas to betray our Lord, and yet that is
exactly what Judas wanted to do and so he did it, therefore he will receive
great punishment in hell because he did this.
Another thing we see is back in Acts 19 we read that it was Paul’s
desire to see Rome, and so we can be assured that he prayed about that, and so
we see something interesting about God and how and why he answers our
prayers. It was Paul’s desire to see
Rome, and so he prayed about it, and yet it was God’s desire for Paul to see
Rome and so the two came together. God
desires us to pray for things that he wants us to accomplish or to do for the
cause of Christ and so when our will align with God’s will for our life then
this is a show of maturity in the Lord.
When we look at the last verse in our section we see Paul
states that he was wearing the chain for the hope of Israel and he said
something similar in Acts 23:6 when he was talking to King Agrippa: “I am standing trial for the hope of the
promise made by God to our fathers.” He
was talking about the same hope that all of the Jews before him understood and
desired to have come about and that was the coming of God’s Messiah to
Israel. John MacArthur writes: “That hope was firmly grounded in the Old
Testament. It is expressed in the
ancient book of Job: ‘Even after my skin
is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold,
and whom my eyes shall see and not another’ (Job 19:26-27). Isaiah prophesied, ‘Your shout for joy, for
your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the
departed spirits’ (Isa. 26:19). In
Daniel 12:2, Daniel was told, ‘Many of those who sleep in the dust of the
ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting
contempt.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Paul wrote
to Titus the following “13 looking for the blessed hope
and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
(Titus 2:13).” What Paul writes here is
not only the hope of Israel, but to all those who have been born again into the
family of God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord to continue to use these Spiritual Diaries as they go onto my blogs to
bring honor and glory to the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Bethlehem” (Matthew 2:1).
Today’s Bible question: “Who pleaded with David to have Solomon made
king?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/8/2018 10:53 AM
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