SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/21/2019
8:26 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Ignorant of God’s Truth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
4:17-19
Message of the verses: “17 This I say
therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as
the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in
their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance
that is in them, because
of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have
given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity
with greediness.”
In
this highlighted section of verse 18 we see that it is because of the hardness
of the hearts of the “Gentiles” that Paul is talking about, those who are
ungodly, they are unresponsive to truth.
“18 They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over
their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot
comprehend. 19 No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say,
"I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its
coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an
abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!" 20 He feeds on ashes; a
deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver himself, nor say,
"Is there not a lie in my right hand?’” (Isaiah 44:18-20 and now 1
Thessalonians 4:5): “not in lustful
passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.”
I
remember hearing a question from a pastor that I knew who asked an undertaker
if he had ever asked a corpse what kind of tie that he wanted to wear. Of course the answer is that because he was
dead that this would be a silly thing to do, and yet in the spiritual way when
a person who is born dead like all who have been born into this world if you
ask them spiritual questions you will not get the right answer because of the
deadness of their heart. John MacArthur
writes “Porosis” (hardness) carries
the idea of being rock-hard. It was used
by physicians to describe the calcification that forms around broken bones and
becomes harder than the bone itself. It
was also used of the hard formations that sometimes occur in joints and cause
them to become immobile. It could
therefore connote the idea of paralysis as well as of hardness. Sin has a petrifying effect, and the heart of
the person who continually chooses to sin becomes hardened and paralyzed to
spiritual truth, utterly insensitive to the things of God.” In our last SD I mentioned Pharaoh and how at
first his heart was heard, but then because of the hardness of his heart God
hardened his heart completely.
I
have to say that I am thankful for the celebration of what we call “Easter”
which I would rather call “Resurrection Sunday,” however this one was a very
difficult for me because for whatever reason I could not get to sleep until
4:30 A.M. and then back up at 7:00 A.M. to get ready to go to Sunday school
this morning and teach on the first six chapters of Revelation chapter twenty. For this reason I have elected, God willing,
to finish this section in our next SD, and I will begin with a quote from a man
named Leroy Auden of the University of Chicago in our next SD.
4/21/2019 8:47 PM
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