SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/15/2019
9:58 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “United in God’s Temple”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 2:20-22
Message of the verses: “20 having been
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself
being the corner stone, 21 in
whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God
in the Spirit.”
We
have been talking about the truth that the Church is the body of Christ, and
the Church is also “a holy temple in the Lord.”
There is a truth that we also need to look at and that is that the body
of Christ, the church, will not be complete until the last person whom God has
chosen in eternity past will become a member in Christ’s body. I have spoken about this many times in my
Spiritual Diaries, and I want to now talk briefly about this once again and add
some things that I have thought about because of my studying for my Sunday
school class in Revelation. Once again
we have to go back to eternity past where God the Father told His Son that He
was going to give Him a bride. Psalm 2
speaks of this as the psalmist goes back into eternity past to bring out this
point. God would chose a bride for His
Son and then His Son would come to earth to pay the price for His bride through
His death on the cross. We mentioned
that the church will not be complete until the last person chosen by God
receives an effectual call from the Holy Spirit, and once that happens the Body
of Christ will be complete and the Lord will then come to the clouds in the air
to receive His bride. This event is
called the rapture of the church and is yet to take place.
In
my Sunday school class of a couple of weeks ago I was teaching on the wrath of
God, which is one of God’s attributes and is seen throughout the book of
Revelation, especially in the 16th chapter where we read about God’s
final seven plagues given to those on planet earth. I mentioned that as I viewed the wrath of God
from different parts of the Bible that it was like a river that at times flowed
slowly and at other times it flowed in rapids and small waterfalls. As I was thinking about this and then with
those whom God chose in eternity past my mind went to two specific acts of God’s
wrath seen in the early chapters of Genesis.
In the 6th chapter of Genesis we read about the flood, and
once the flood was over we read that man did not live as long as they did
before the flood. This is a truth that
is seen in the book of Genesis. Next I
thought about the tower of Babble where God judged man by confusing the languages
so that one day after this judgment people began to speak in different
languages and so they went with people who spoke the same language and so most
of the people left what we call Babylon.
As I thought about these two judgments my conclusion was that by these
two judgments man’s ability to learn began to slow down. Man did not live as long as before the flood
and man could not communicate with others who spoke different languages. Now as we look at the world we live in today
we can see that because of man’s accumulative learning we are back to the
ability of man’s ability to learn back before the judgment at Babel. 5 The LORD came down to see the city and the
tower which the sons of men had built. 6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and
they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now
nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. 7 “Come,
let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand
one another’s speech." 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over
the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore
its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole
earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole
earth (Genesis 11:5-9). Now you may
wonder what my point is in all of this when it comes to having the last person
in the Body of Christ to be saved. My
thought is that because of these two judgments that many more people were born
into the world. If the languages had not
been changed by the Lord then I believe that mankind would possibility
destroyed the world a long time ago.
When we read about what will happen in the tribulation period and how
God said that He will destroy those who destroyed the world that I believe this
would have happened thousands of years ago.
God chose people for salvation in eternity past to give to His Son, and
all of those people have to be born along with all of those who will not accept
the forgiveness that God offers through His Son.
John
MacArthur talks about cathedrals in Europe that have been under construction
for hundreds of years as they keep on adding rooms to them, and this pictures
the growth of the Church as each new saint becomes a new stone as seen in 1
Peter 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house
for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ.” MacArthur writes “As
kingdom citizens, family members, and living stones, believes in Jesus Christ
are a holy priesthood who offer up spiritual sacrifices in God’s ‘holy temple.’ As a living functioning, and precious part of
that temple, we ‘also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the
Spirit (se also 2 Cor. 6:16).” “Or what
agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living
God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I
WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.”
“The
term ‘ a dwelling’ (katoiketerion)
carries the idea of a permanent home. ‘God
in the Spirit’ makes His earthly sanctuary in the church, where He takes up
permanent residence as Lord. This would
be a vivid perception for people living amid temples in which pagan deities
were believed to dwell, as in the temple to Artemis in Ephesus.” This certainly is not true of the Church as it
is not some small physical chamber where idols are kept. The Church is the vast spiritual body of all
the redeemed, where in it resides the Spirit of God.
MacArthur
concludes in comments on this section which concludes our study of the 2nd
chapter of Ephesians by writing “Through the blood, the suffering flesh, the cross, and the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ, aliens become citizens, strangers become family,
idolaters become the temple of the true God, the hopeless inherit the promises
of God, those without Christ become one in Christ, those far off are brought
near, and the godless are reconciled to God.
Therein is the reconciliation of men to God and men to men.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is all said in the wonderful quote from
John MacArthur.
My Steps of Faith for Today: When I am
tempted I need to quote Scripture.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The Geneva Bible of 1560.”
Today’s Bible question: “After denying Jesus, what did Peter do when
he heard the cock crow?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/15/2019 10:53 AM
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