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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