SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/9/2020 7:25 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 2nd Temptation “Testing God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 4:5-7
Message of the verses: “5 Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down; for it is written, ’HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU’; and ’ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’" 7 Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, ’YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’’”
As we continue to look at this temptation that Satan wants Jesus to jump off of the pinnacle of the temple just think for a moment if Jesus would have succumbed to doing this thing. We could call this sensationalism, and if one would do something like this then the people who saw it would eventually want more done for them to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Think about when Jesus feed the 5000, and then on the next day those people were following Him to what? To get more food which is what Jesus said to them when He told them that they were only wanting more food and not wanting the real spiritual food that He was offering.
Let us look at more evidence from Matthew 24:24 “"For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” In this particular verse Jesus is talking about the tribulation period, but during that time false prophets will come and will fool many people over their tricks that they do, but in the end it will cause them to miss the truth and end up in hell. I remember when I was a young man that my aunt had some physical troubles and she wanted to go to what were called “faith healers.” All these faith healers wanted was your money as they could not heal people but were good at giving out the health and wealth gospel which is not a gospel at all. If these people were really ones who could heal people then they should have gone to hospital after hospital to heal everyone there. If you could not get healed they would tell you that you do not have enough faith. A nurse where I worked had cancer in her leg and was told to have a part of her leg cut off and he faith healing pastor told her to trust the Lord to care for the cancer. She eventually had it cut off and she later told me that she did not have enough faith to get healed. I wanted to give her pastor a piece of my mind, but I don’t suppose that would have done any good. I am not saying that God cannot and does not heal people, I am saying that I do not believe there are such things as faith healers in the church age we live in as that gift is not available at this time. A friend of mine told me a long time ago that God heals you every time but the last when He will take the believer to be with Him at that time.
John MacArthur writes “Jesus would have no part of cheap, faithless sensationalism. He therefore replied to Satan, ‘It is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ For those who believe in God it is more than evident that He already has proved Himself. Jesus did not need to prove to Himself that His Father cared and protected, and He knew that the Father’s care and protection could not be proved to others by any means but faith.”
Look’s like one more section in this 2nd temptation that Satan gives to Jesus.
2/9/2020 7:50 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment