SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/3/2020 9:21 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Intro
to Matthew 5:17”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:17
Message
of the verse: “17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”
We
continue to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary. “If there is no religious absolute there can
be no basis for real law. People will
not respect or long obey laws that are only judicial guesses. An evil, godless society, floating about on a
sea of relativism, realizes that it was no foundation, no anchor, no unmoving
point of reference. Law becomes a matter
of reference and order a matter of power.
A democracy where power is ultimately vested in the people is
particularly vulnerable to chaos.
“Is there
an absolute basis for truth, for law, for morals, for real right and wrong; and
if so, what is it? Those questions are
the essence of what Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:17-20. The absolute, He says, is the law of the
eternally sovereign God. God has laid
down His absolute, eternal, abiding law and made it known to men. And as God’s own Son, Jesus declared
unequivocally that He did not come to teach or practice anything contrary to
the law in even the slightest way, but to uphold it entirely.
“We
continually hear the idea that because times have changed the Bible does not
fit our day. The truth, of course, is
the opposite. The Bible always fits,
because the Bible is God’s perfect, eternal, and infallible Word. It is the standard by which true ‘fit’ is
measured. It is the world that does not
fit the Bible, and not because the world has changed but because the Bible has
not changed. Outwardly the world has
changed a great deal since biblical days, but in its basic nature and
orientation it has always been opposed to God and has never conformed to His
Word. The world has never fit Scripture.
“The
argument is also proposed that Scripture is but a collection of various men’s
ideas about God and about right and wrong.
One person’s interpretation of the Bible is therefore just as good as
another’s, and there is no place for dogmatism.
Men have been left free to believe or not believe, to follow or not follow,
and or all of Scripture as it suits them.
Each person becomes his own judge over Scripture, and the end result for
most is to disregard it altogether.
God’s
revealed Word, Jesus says, not only is truth, but is truth conveyed with
absolute, inviolable authority. It is in
that authority that He came to teach and to minister, and it is to that
authority that He commands His kingdom citizens to bow and obey. “Let it speak,’ He says. “Let it rebuke, correct shatter, overturn all
your evil ways and let it show the absolute, inerrant, and perfect will of God—and
the way to eternal life.’
“For
thirty years Jesus lived in privacy and obscurity. Only Mary and intimates to the family would
have remembered the miraculous events that surrounded His birth and early
years. As far as His friends and
neighbors were concerned, He was but a unique Jewish carpenter. It was when He began His ministry, when He
was immersed in the Jordan by John the Baptist and stared to preach, that all
eyes suddenly turned on Him. At that
point, even the leaders of Israel could not ignore Him.”
Lord
willing we will continue to look at this introduction in our next SD.
To all of
those in the United States have a very happy and meaningful July 4th.
7/3/2020 9:42 AM
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