SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/22/2020
9:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The Right
Proclamation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 4:17
Message of the
verse: “17
From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.’”
We come to the last main section
from this ninth chapter of John MacArthur’s commentary on the 9th
chapter and we will try and finish this chapter today, but may have to finish
it tomorrow.
We want to look at the word “preach”
as it was a central part of our Lord’s ministry while on earth, and continues
today to be a central part of the ministry of the church. The Greek word for preach is “Kerusso” and this means to proclaim or
to publish, “that is, to publicly make a message known. R. C. H. Lenski comments, ‘The point to be
noted is that to preach is not to argue, reason, dispute, or convince by
intellectual proof, against all of which a keen intellect may bring
counterargument. We simply state in
public or testify to all men the truth which God bids us state. No argument can assail the truth presented in
this announcement or testimony. Men
either believe the truth, as all sane men should, or refuse to believe it, as
only fools venture to do.’”
We can see from this description of
what preaching is that Jesus preached His message with certainty. He did not come to dispute or to argue, but
to proclaim, or to preach. What Jesus
preached to those listening to Him was the truth, and I realize that some do
not want to hear the truth, and will even say that the truth is not the truth,
but that would be wrong. Jesus said in
John 14:6 “"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father but through Me.” That is the
truth and even many today don’t believe this statement the thing is that that
does not make it a lie, for it is the truth and always will be the truth.
Not only did Jesus preach with
certainty and authority, but Jesus preached only what He was commissioned by
His Father to preach. Let us look at two
verses from John’s gospel; 3:34 and then 8:38 “"34 For He whom God has
sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure” (Spoken
by John the Baptist). “38 “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore
you also do the things which you heard from your father” (Spoken by
Jesus to the Pharisees). Well we need to
look at John 12:49 also “"For I did not speak on My own initiative, but
the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to
say and what to speak.”
There
is more found in Jesus’ high priestly prayer to confirm that He only preached
what His Father commissioned Him to preach:
“6 "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of
the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your
word. 7 "Now they have come to know
that everything You have given Me is from You; 8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they
received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they
believed that You sent Me.”
John
MacArthur writes “When the King’s light dawned, the message that His light
brought was clear. He began where His
herald, John the Baptist, had begun: ‘Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (cf. 3:2).”
We
have been talking a lot about light and darkness in this section from the 4th
chapter of Matthew and Jesus was certainly bringing spiritual light to a very
dark world and that light came in the form of the gospel and part of the gospel
message was to repent, to turn from sin, to change one’s orientation, to turn
around and seek a new way. MacArthur
writes “Metanoeo literally means a
change of perception, a change in the way we see something. To repent, therefore, is to change the way a
person looks at sin and the way he looks at righteousness. It involves a change of opinion, of
direction, of life itself. T repent is to have a radical change of heart and
will—and, consequently, of behavior (cf. Matt. 3:8).”
This
is and always will be the first requirement of salvation, for as I have mentioned
many times in these SD’s none of us were born right we were all born wrong, we
were all born sinners became of Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden. We sin because we were born sinners, we may
not be as bad as we can be, but we are all as bad off as we can be.
Israel
as a whole would not be ready to receive their Messiah because they did not
desire to repent as can be seen by most of the Israel’s “religious” authorities
like the Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven was at
hand, but they would bring about their greatest sin by crucifying their
Messiah, and they are still being cursed by that sin even today.
Because
of Israel’s rejection of their Messiah the literal physical kingdom was set
aside. We now live in the spiritual
kingdom, which will end at the rapture of the church, and then there will be a
time of tribulation for seven years and then we have learned that all Israel
will be saved, the Lord will return and after 45 days the literal physical
kingdom promised to Israel will begin and last for 1000 years. I certainly look forward to all of this
happening.
2/22/2020 10:24 AM
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