SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/7/2020
9:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The Mission”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 3:3
Message of the verse: “3 For this is the
one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, "THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN
THE WILDERNESS, ’MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!’’”
We
have three more short sections to do before we finish this 5th
chapter in John MacArthur’s commentary, and because of having the funeral of my
father-in-law tomorrow I will only do one of these short sections and then
another tomorrow, Lord willing, and then Thursday it is my desire to finish the
comments that are in the last section.
I
want to make a few comments on where this quotation from Isaiah came from. I will quote from Isaiah 40:3-4 to show where
it did come from: “3 A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the LORD in
the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. 4 “Let every
valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough
ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley;” First of all I want to say that as we read
from Isaiah and then from Matthew we see that in Matthew there is a shorter
version than from Isaiah. I can conclude
that this is exactly the way that the Holy Spirit desired to put what He put in
Matthew. There is another thing that I
have probably mentioned a few times on the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah has sixty-six chapters in
it. The Bible has sixty-six books in it
with thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New
Testament. When it comes to the book of
Isaiah some have actually called a miniature Bible because of the break found
in between chapter thirty-nine and chapter forty. Chapter forty begins “1 "Comfort, O comfort My people," says your God.” This is a big change in the way that Isaiah
was writing in the first thirty-nine chapters, thus it is more like what we
find in the New Testament. Some so
called “scholars” have even come to the conclusion that someone other than
Isaiah wrote the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah. My comment on that is “nonsense.” Now as we look at verses three and for we see
what happens near the beginning of the New Testament from our section today, “The
Mission.”
You
can see from our comments above that the mission of John the Baptist had long
before been describe much earlier, perhaps some 700 years earlier. We can see from this that Matthew again
emphasizes fulfilled prophecy in the coming of Jesus Christ as divine King. We have seen this in Matthew 1:22; 2:5, 15
and 17 as we studied this earlier. One
may think that this prophecy was like what the heralds in the Old Testament
times would do for their coming king, and that would be make sure the roads
were cleaned of rocks and holes in the road so that the king would have a
smooth ride coming into the town or city.
In the case of John the Baptist he was clearing men’s hearts of the
obstacles that kept them from the King, not the roads. “The way of the Lord” is repentance, of
turning from sin to righteousness, and of turning moral and spiritual ‘paths’
that are crooked into ones that are ‘straight,’ and ones that are fit for the
King. Isaiah states “Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill
be made low and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a
broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see
it together (Isaiah 40:4-5). “The call
of John’s ‘voice’ that was crying [bontos]
‘in the wilderness’ of Judea was the shouting of urgency commanding people to
repent, to confess sin and the need of a Savior. ‘His paths’ (tribous) are well known, as the Greek term implies, because they are
clearly revealed in Scripture” (John MacArthur).
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I see 1 John 1:9 as to how this applies to me
today “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is God’s
cry to believers today, to make sure that they keep a short list with the Lord
in order to have Him work in the lives of believers.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I continue to seek Joy as I read His Word
each day. I also desire to have faith
that all that is going on with the preparations for the viewing and funeral
will be in the will of the Lord.
Today’s quotation from “Love in Action” comes from
David Jeremiah’s comments on the verses we looked at yesterday.
Good encouragers
have to be genuine. Don’t fake it. Be real.
Good encouragers are
diligent. Work hard.
Good encouragers are
assertive. Take initiative.
Do you know why many people are not encouraged? Because everybody thinks somebody else is
doing the encouraging. And while we
think somebody else is doing it, we take no aggressive action.
1/7/2020 10:21 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment