SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/30/2020 9:57 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Perversion by Addition”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 5:43
Message of the
verse: “43
"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate
your enemy.’”
We begin to look at the last part of
the perversion by addition which is the last part of verse 43 “and hate your
enemy.” In our last SD we lastly looked
at what is called the imprecatory Psalms that were written by David. However such words did not represent David’s
personal vendetta but they represented his concern for God’s holiness and also
His justice that it would be executed on those who despised the Lord’s glorious
name and to those who were persecuting His people. You see that before Christ was born the blood
line that He would come through had to remain intact so that He would be born
at the exact time that God desired for Him to be born. Now as we go back to look at Psalm 69 again
we want to look at verse nine today as it is the basis for David’s imprecations
“For zeal for Your house has consumed me, And the reproaches of those who
reproach You have fallen on me.” We can
see from this verse that David is angered about what had been done against God,
and in John 2:17 we read these very words that came from the lips of our Lord
Jesus Christ at the beginning of His ministry.
He will then cleanse the Temple at the end of His ministry too.
Let us now look at the
superscription at the beginning of Psalm 3 and then look at verse seven of that
verse: “«A Psalm of David, when he fled from
Absalom his son.” “Arise, O LORD; save
me, O my God! For You have smitten all my enemies on the cheek; You have
shattered the teeth of the wicked.” We
can see that this Psalm was written by David after the demise of his son Absalom
as he tried to usurp his father’s kingdom.
David loved his son dearly, and mourned a long time after his death, but
he knew Absalom was ungodly and the enemy of God’s people and of His anointed
king.
We can see a similar experience from John in the book of
Revelation “I took the little book out of the angel’s
hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten
it, my stomach was made bitter” (Rev. 10:10).
The book contained what was going to happen as millions of people would
die, but John knew that these people, for the most part were against God.
John MacArthur writes “It is one
thing to defend the honor and glory of God by seeking the defeat of His
detracting enemies, but quite another to hate people personally as our own
enemies. Our attitude toward even the
worst pagans or heretics is to love them and pray that they will turn to God
and be saved. But we also pray that, if
they do not turn to Him, God will judge them and remove them in order to
prepare the way for His Son Jesus Christ as the rightful ruler of this world.”
When
we look at the scribes and the Pharisees we can see that they had no such balance. They had no love for justice, but only for
vengeance. They certainly had no love
for their enemies but only for themselves.
We can see words from David in Psalm 139:22-24 that are needed to be
looked at now: “22 I hate them with the utmost hatred;
They have become my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try
me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.”
MacArthur
concludes “The scribes and Pharisees, by contrast, knew nothing either of
righteousness indignation or righteous love.
Their only indignation was that of personal hatred, and their only love
was that of self-esteem.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: We have a lady in our church who stands in
front of an abortion clinic every Wednesday, rain, snow, cold or hot she stands
there to minister to ladies who about to kill their baby. At first there was hatred for the women who
were about to kill an innocent person, but then she, through the ministry of
the Holy Spirit began to have love for them.
There now has been lives changed because of her love for her enemies and
I praise the Lord for that.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the person but hate their sin.
9/30/2020 10:27 AM
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