Friday, September 18, 2020

PT-2 "The Perspective of Divine Truth" (Matt. 5:39-42)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/18/2020 9:33 AM

 

My Worship Time                                               Focus:  PT-2 “The Perspective of Divine Truth”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 5:39-42

 

            Message of the verses:  39 “But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 “If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41 “And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 “Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”

 

            I write the following quote from John MacArthur that surely has much to do with the days that we are living in here in the USA:  As long as the natural human heart exists, evil will have to be restrained by law.  Our crime-wrecked society would do well to reexamine—and reapply—biblical law.  When God is forsaken, His righteous standards are forsaken, and His law is forsaken.  Antinomianism, the doing away with law, is as much an enemy of the gospel as legalism and works righteousness.  The Old and New Testaments are never at odds in regard to law and grace, justice and mercy.  The Old Testament teaches nothing of a righteous and just God apart from a merciful and loving God, and the New Testament teaches nothing of a merciful and loving God apart from a righteous and just God.  The revelation of God is unchanging in regard to moral law.”

 

            During the church age in which we live there have been times when the church stopped preaching God’s righteousness, justice, and eternal punishment of the lost, and it stopped preaching the fulness of the gospel, and then both society and the church suffered greatly for these mistakes.  During these times the church began to stop holding its own members accountable to God’s standards and stopped disciplining its own ranks, a great deal of its moral influence on society was sacrificed.   MacArthur adds “One of the legacies of theological liberalism is civil as well as religious lawlessness.

 

            “Not to restrain evil is neither just nor kind.  If fails to protect the innocent and has the effect of encouraging the wicked in their evil.  Proper restraint of evil, however, not only is just but is beneficent as well.

 

“Arthur Pink says,

 

‘Magistrates and judges were never ordained by God for the purpose of reforming reprobates or pampering degenerates, but to be His instruments for preserving law and order by being a t error to evil.  As Romans chapter 13 says, they are to be ‘a revenger to execute wrath on him that doeth evil.’…Conscience has become comatose.  The requirements of justice are stifled; maudlin concepts now prevail.  As eternal punishment was repudiated—either tacitly or in many cases openly—ecclesiastical punishment are shelved.  Churches refuse to enforce sanctions and wink at flagrant offenses.  The inevitable outcome has been the breakdown of discipline in the home and the creation of ‘public opinion,’ which is mawkish and spineless.  School teachers are intimidated by foolish parents and children so that the rising generation are more and more allowed to have their own way without fear of consequences.  And if some judge has the courage of his convictions, and sentences a brute for maiming an old woman, there is an outcry against the judge.’ (An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974], p. 112-113).’

 

            “To lower God’s standard of justice is to lower God’s standard of righteousness—which Jesus came to fulfill and clarify, not to obviate or diminish.”

 

            In verse 39 we see the word resist, and the Greek word is Anthistemi, and this means to set against or oppose, and in this context obviously it refers to harm done to us personally by someone “who is evil.”  MacArthur concludes “Jesus is speaking of personal resentment, spite, and vengeance.  It is the same truth taught by Paul when he said, ‘Never pay back evil for evil to anyone…Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord’ (Rom. 12:17, 19).  Vengeful retaliation has no place in society at large, and even less place among those who belong to Christ.  We are called to overcome someone’s evil toward us by doing good to them (Rom. 12:21).

 

            “After establishing the basic principle in Matthew 5:39a, in verses 39b-42 Jesus picks out four basic human rights that He uses to illustrate the principle of nonretaliation:  dignity, security, liberty, and property.”  Lord willing we will begin with “Dignity” in our next SD.

 

9/18/2020 10:09 AM

 

 

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