PT-2 "The Condemnation" (Matt. 3:8-10)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/17/2020 10:43 AM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-2 “The Condemnation”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 3:8-10

            Message of the verses:  “8  "Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9  and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ’We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. 10 “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

            In our last SD we began to discuss repentance, something that the Pharisees and the Sadducees knew something about, but they did not know the whole story of what repentance is all about.  The Old Testament’s understanding of repentance always involves a changed life, a renouncing of sin and doing righteousness.  The following comes from what the Lord declared in the book of Ezekiel “18 "When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die in it. 19 “But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them.”  Next we will look at a plea from Hosea “1 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity. 2 Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity And receive us graciously, That we may present the fruit of our lips.”  The following comes from the book of Jonah after he had spoken in Nineveh “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, [and] then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”  Nineveh bought “forth fruit in keeping with repentance.”

            John MacArthur writes “The idea that repentance is evidenced by renunciation of sin and by righteousness living did not originate with John the Baptist, but had long been an integral part of Orthodox Judaism.  Faithful rabbis had taught that one of the most important passages in Scripture was, ‘Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.  Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless; defend the orphan, plead for the widow’ (Isa. 1:16-17).”  It did not take Isaiah long to talk about repentance in his book.

            John MacArthur quotes theologian Erich Sauer from “The Triumph of the Crucified” as he speaks of repentance as “a threefold action.  In the understanding it means knowledge of sin; in the feelings it means pain and grief; and in the will it means a change of mind.”  “True repentance first of all involves understanding and insight, intellectual awareness of the need for moral and spiritual cleansing and change.  Second, it involves appropriate actions that result from what our mind knows and our heart feels.”

            Recognizing person sin if a good first step, however by itself it is useless and even dangerous.  Why?  Because it tends to make a person think that mere recognition is all that is necessary.  When we go back to the Exodus we see that a hardened Pharaoh admitted his sin as seen in Exodus 9:27.  We see in Numbers 22:34 that a double-minded Balaam admitted his sin, and then there is the story of a greedy Achan as he acknowledged his sin as seen in Joshua 7:20.  Then there was the insincere Saul confessing his sin in 1 Samuel 15:24.  In the NT we see the rich young ruler who asked Jesus how to have eternal life whet away very sorrowful as seen in Luke 18:23.  Then we have a man who walked for three years with the Son of God stating that he had sinned, and then Judas went out and hung himself.  All of the above recognized sin, but none of them repented.  What they all were experiencing was what the apostle Paul said “the sorrow of the world” that “produces death” instead of the “godly sorrow” that “produces a repentance” as seen in 2 Corinthians 7:10-11.

            We will continue to look at repentance, Lord willing in our next several SD’s.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to say that by listening to a sermon from this section and then going over it again from MacArthur’s commentary I am learning many things that I desire to put into practice as I grow in the Lord.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Sometimes even convicting things from the Scripture bring joy to my heart.

1/17/2020 11:17 AM