SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/9/2020
9:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The
Ministry”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
3:5-6
Message of the verses: “5 Then Jerusalem
was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; 6
and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed
their sins.”
We
can see that many people were coming to see John, and to be baptized, which we
will dwell on a bit later. Many of these
people came from fairly long distances to hear this preacher who dressed in
unusual clothes as we saw yesterday. One
must remember that it had been around 400 years since the people of Israel had
heard from God and I suppose that once they heard about John the Baptist that
this would bring excitement to them. No
prophet spoke to them for four hundred years and many of the people who came to
see John stated that he was indeed a prophet as seen in Matthew 21:26.
We
have talked about the Jews being baptized in earlier SD’s, but I think that
perhaps we should go over it once again.
First of all baptism was not something that Jewish people did as a part
of their “religious” things they were suppose to do. However when a proselytes, those who were not
born into the nation of Israel but wanted to worship like the Jews did they
would have to be baptized. There are
different kinds of baptisms and this was one of them. I just searched for the word “baptized” and “baptism”
in the entire Bible and found neither was found in the OT, and a combination of
64 times in the NT. 1 For I do not want you to be unaware,
brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the
sea; 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;” (1 Cor.
10:1-2). John MacArthur from his Study
Bible comments on this kind of baptism: “Israel
was immersed, not in the sea, but ‘into Moses,’ indicating their oneness, or
solidarity, with him as their leader.”
When we looked at the book of Acts we found that Paul ran into a couple
who had been baptized in John’s baptism, a baptism of repentance: 1 It
happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper
country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. 2 He said to them,
"Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said
to him, "No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." 3
And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said,
"Into John’s baptism." 4 Paul said, "John baptized with the
baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming
after him, that is, in Jesus." 5 When they heard this, they were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them,
the Holy
Spirit came on them, and they began
speaking with tongues and prophesying. 7 There were in all about twelve men”
(Acts 19:1-7). I think that these verses
help us better to understand about John’s baptism and then baptized into the
name of Jesus.
One
of the things that I thought about when the Jewish people were baptized by John
and then compare this to when the proselytes were baptized is that most of the
leaders who would have done the baptism of the proselytes was that they
themselves needed to be baptized by John themselves.
John
MacArthur comments on this: “John’s
washing, however, was one-time. The only
one-time washing the Jews performed was for Gentiles, signifying their coming
as outsiders into the true faith of Judaism.
A Jew who submitted to such a rite demonstrated, in effect, that he was
an outsider who sought entrance into the people of God—an amazing admission for
a Jew. Members of God’s chose race,
descendants of Abraham, heirs of the covenant of Moses, came to John to be
baptized like a Gentile.” I guess he
says that better than me, but I am thankful that he agrees with me.
I
want to quote this fairly long paragraph as MacArthur writes about John: “Six things demonstrate the true greatness of
John. (1) He was filled with and
controlled by the Spirit, even from ‘his mother’s womb’ (Luke 1:15b). (2) He was obedient to God’s Word. From childhood he followed God’s will, and
from it he never wavered. (3) He was self-controlled, drinking neither ‘wine of
liquor’ (Luke 1:15a). In his food,
dress, and lifestyle he was temperate and austere (sober). (4) He was humble. His purpose was to announce the King, not to
act kingly, or take for himself any of the King’s prerogatives. Speak of Jesus, John said, ‘After me One is
coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the
thong of His sandals’ (Mark 1:7), and on a later occasion, ‘He must increase,
but I must decrease’ (John 3:30). (5) He
courageously and faithfully proclaimed God’s Word, thundering it across the
wilderness as long as he was free to preach, to whomever would listen. (6)
Finally, he was faithful in winning people to Christ, in turning ‘back many of
the sons of Israel to the Lord their God’ (Luke 1:16). He stands as a pattern for all who seek
genuine greatness.”
We
are not done with our study of John the Baptist, and still have things to learn
about this wonderful man of God. We
begin a new chapter, Lord willing, in our next SD, a new chapter in MacArthur’s
commentary.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I can continue to learn humility as I read
about John’s life, knowing that I am to do the things that the Lord wants me to
do and not to do things that He has not prepared for me to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: First of all I desire to praise the Lord for
the wonderful funeral we had for my father-in-law Elmer Kozich yesterday as
this was a part of my steps of faith from yesterday. We had many in attendance, the message of the
gospel was made clear to all who were there, and I believe this brought glory
to the Lord. My father-in-law was
brought forth in a great tribute to him in the form of many people in our
family saying many good things about him.
I also have to say that my son did a tearful tribute to him that brought
many laughs from those in attendant. I
am so proud, (in a good way) for what my tearful daughter did as she read a
poem about her grandpa too. What a
wonderful answer to prayer. Our pastor
who attended stated that this was one of the most wonderful funerals he had
ever been to, and he has been to many.
Our quotation from “Love in Action”
comes from David Jeremiah’s comments on our verse from yesterday.
Good
encouragers are selfless, concerned primarily for others.
Good
encouragers give themselves away to others.
Being an encourager takes something out
of you. When you weep with somebody, you’ve
played your ‘weep domino’ and it’s gone.
When you rejoice with somebody, they lay down a ‘rejoice’ and you lay
down a ‘rejoice,’ and for a little while your rejoice is gone. And pretty soon you’ve played all your
dominoes—they’re all gone. When that happens,
you’ve won!
I hope everyone has enjoyed these
quotations about encouragers as we only have two more to go and then the ten
commandants of encouragement.
1/9/2020 10:33 AM
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