SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/17/2019
8:17 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Intro. To the Gospel of Matthew”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
Message of the
verses: I want to say that as I was
praying and thinking about what NT book that I would study after spending over
13 months on Ephesians I was almost ready to look at the book of Hebrews, but
as I thought about it I remembered that Hebrews was one of the books that I
have studied in the format that I have studied many of the NT books. Matthew was on the other hand the very first
book that I began to study soon after I began to use the Spiritual Diary
method, but it was not done on my computer and so I have no records of it. As I think about how long it took John
MacArthur to preach through the NT I learned it took him some 40+ years, and it
seems that the majority of those years was going through the four gospels. In his commentaries on Matthew he has written
over 1800 pages that are divided into four commentaries.
The Gospel of Matthew is about Jesus Christ as the coming
King of Israel, and Matthew writes his Gospel mostly to the Jews using many OT
quotations to show that Jesus Christ is the coming King of Israel.
I have mentioned Psalm 2 in many of my Spiritual Diaries
as it tells of how God the Father in eternity past would give a bride to His
Son, and His Son would then go to planet earth to pay for His bride’s salvation
by taking their place on the cross in order for them to be saved. “But as for
Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the
Lord: He said to Me ‘Thou art My Son,
today I have begotten The. Ask of Me,
and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance, and the very ends of
the earth as Thy possession’” (Ps. 2:6-8).
David calls the coming One “The King of Glory” and “the Lord of hosts”
as seen in Ps. 24:10. The coming King is
spoken of in similar ways in Psalms 45, 72, 110, and other Psalms.
The
prophets speak of the great King as both human and also divine. Isaiah 7:14 “"Therefore
the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and
bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” The word Immanuel means “God with us.” Let us look at Isaiah 53:3-7 “He was despised
and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one
from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our
sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and
afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed
for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And
by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each
of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 7
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a
lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its
shearers, So He did not open His mouth.”
In Daniel’s prophecy chapter 7:13 we see Daniel writes “"I
kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.” Son of Man was one of the favorite titles of
our Lord Jesus Christ while on earth.
Isaiah 9:6-7 “6 For a child will
be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be
called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On
the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with
justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of
hosts will accomplish this.”
Isaiah says one of His names is “God with us,” showing his readers that
this King will be both human and divine.
Micah tells us where He will be born in 5:2 “2 "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too
little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from
long ago, From the days of eternity.’”
Zephaniah 3:15 “The LORD has taken away His judgments against
you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your
midst; You will fear disaster no more.”
He calls the Messiah “The King of Israel.” Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is
coming to you; He is just
and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a
colt, the foal of a donkey.” The
highlighted portion of this verse is what I want us to focus on.
Lord
willing, in our next SD we will look at the authorship of the gospel, and
perhaps what the Message of Matthew’s gospel is.
We move into the third chapter of “Love
in Action” entitled “Changing Lives..By Encouraging Your Family” and will look
at the introduction to this chapter penned by Church Swindoll.
“I know
of no realm of life that can provide more companionship in a
lonely world
or greater feeling of security and purpose in
chaotic
times than the close ties of a family.
As tough as
it may
be to maintain this closeness, I say again,
it is
worth every ounce of effort.”
11/17/2019 8:57 PM
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