SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/21/2021 3:11 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Character”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
7:16-20
Message of the verses: “16 “You will know
them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs
from thistles, are they? 17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad
tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad
tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut
down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
We
continue to look at how the false prophets can bring about the wrong teachings
to those that they talk to. They can disguise
and also hide their “bad fruit” for a while with what we call religious
trappings, biblical knowledge, and evangelical vocabulary. Another thing is that they can cover it by
belonging to Christian organizations, as they associate with Christian leaders
and by talking about divine things. They
know enough truth to cause those who listen to them to believe that they are
not false prophets or false teachers.
However how they talk, act, and react when not in the view of Christians
will eventually express their t rue loyalty and convictions. What is in the heart of these false teachers
will emerge, and corrupt theology with result in a corrupt life. So false
teaching and perverted living are inseparable, and eventually will become clear.
Peter
tells us that as true and mature believers we will grow in faith, moral
excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly
kindness, and love as seen in 1 Peter 1:5-8.
“5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith
supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and
in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control,
perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your
godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 For
if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither
useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter then talks about false prophets in
2:18-19 “18 For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly
desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in
error, 19 promising them
freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome,
by this he is enslaved.”
We
will finish this rather short SD with a quotation from John MacArthur, and then
by God’s grace will finish this section in our next SD. Before I give this quotation I want to tell
you that I got my Online Bible Program in the mail yesterday and finally got it
put onto my computer so that was a load off of my mind to which I am thankful
for.
“Unless
those who claim to be God’s spokesmen give evidence that their deepest motives
and life patterns are to honor, glorify, and magnify God, and to grow in
humility, holiness, and obedience, we can be sure that God has not called or
sent them. If they are oriented to
money, prestige, recognition, popularity, power, sexual looseness, and
selfishness, they do not belong to Jesus Christ. If they are proud, arrogant, resentful, egotistical,
and self-indulgent, they clearly are false prophets. The true test, a beatitude
attitude of humility, can be summed up in Jesus’ words: “He who speaks from himself seeks his own
glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the one who sent Him, He is true, and
there is no unrighteousness in Him’ (John 7:18).” Now hold that though as we will begin our
next SD with a quotation from Martyn Lloyd-Jones at the beginning of that SD.
2/21/2021 3:44 PM
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