The Relative: A Woman (Matt. 8:14-15)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/31/2021 11:14 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  “The Relative: A Woman”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Matthew 8:14-15

 

            Message of the verses:  “14 When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him.”

 

            As John MacArthur begins this section in his commentary he writes something that is a prayer that many Jewish men would pray in the morning.  They would pray “Lord, I thank Thee that I was not born a slave, a Gentile, or a woman.”  Now as we look at those who Jesus has healed in this chapter the first was a slave, second a Gentile, and now we will see that He heals a woman.  Jesus is showing those who pray that prayer that they really don’t know how to pray, as they have no compassion on these three types of individuals like their Messiah has.

 

            In Mark’s gospel we find that Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James and John came into Peter’s house that it was then that Jesus was informed about the illness that Peter’s mother-in-law had, and so the immediately spoke to Jesus about her illness.  We see from Dr. Luke that she had a very high fever, something that in that day and age they could do little to care for it. 

 

            I also want to point out that in that day and age people had to be really ill to just lie in bed for everyone had jobs to do no matter how they felt and so many people worked through a great deal of pain and discomfort, certainly not like the day and age we live in now.

 

            As in the last to healings we see that once Jesus touched this woman she immediately was healed.  When a person is sick with a fever today and they begin to get over it there is a time period when they still have effects of the fever, but not the case with Peter’s mother-in-law as we see that she got up and began to work in the house to feed her guests.  Another thing we want to talk about is that in verses 11-12 we saw some very strong words that Jesus used about the people of Israel, the Jews, and now He heals one of the Jewish woman so we can surely see that Jesus was not giving up in the Jewish people.  In the letter Paul wrote to the Romans we can see in chapters 9-11 how much Paul cares for the Jewish people, as he even stated that if it were possible that he would give up his own salvation if it meant that the Jews would accept the forgiveness that Jesus offers, but of course that was not possible. 

 

            I will quote some verse from the 11^th chapter of Romans to show that God has not given up on the Jewish people which will close this SD.   “2 God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?”  “5  In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.”  “24  For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can see from the prayers that the Jewish men prayed that having a prejudice against someone only hurts the one that has it and not the one who the prejudice is against.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord to give my just operated wife to have a comfortable day, and trusting the Lord to give me the right words to say at our revival prayer meeting this evening.

 

3/31/2021 11:37 AM

PT-4 "The Respected Man: A Gentile" (Matt. 8:5-13)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2021 10:06 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                  Focus:  PT-4 “The Respected Man: A Gentile”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 8:5-13

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, 6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented." 7 Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." 8 But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9  "For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it." 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. 11 "I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very moment.”

 

            I want to begin with another quote from John MacArthur:  “Jesus’ words to those Capernaum Jews was startling in the extreme.  What He said utterly contradicted everything taught by their rabbis.  The twenty-ninth chapter of the apocryphal book of Second Baruch pictures what Jews believed would be the great heavenly feast at which all Jews were going to sit down and eat behemoth, the elephant, and leviathan, the great sea monster, or whale—symbolic of an unlimited amount of food.  In the eyes of many Jews, one of the most significant and appealing things about the feast was that it would be totally free of Gentiles.”  Great hatred can be seen in this quotation, and many Gentiles felt the same way about the Jews too.

 

            Jesus is saying that at that meal many Gentiles will be present and many Jews will be absent, as the presumed “sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  One of the problems of the Jews is that they thought they were the only special people of God would enter into His kingdom which is certainly not true.  God desired the Jews to tell others of the way of salvation, something that they did not do.  Even the disciples of Jesus did not get it at first.  It is because that the Jews rejected their Messiah, their King whom Matthew is writing about all through the gospel he writes that they disqualified themselves from God’s blessing of light and destined themselves for “outer darkness.”  Instead of feasting throughout eternity, they would suffer forever in the horror of “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” something that Jesus mentions on more than one occasion.  MacArthur writes “Jewish tradition taught that sinners—a term synonymous with Gentiles in their thinking—would spend eternity in the outer darkness of Gehenna.  Jesus concurred with them about the destiny of condemned sinners (see also Matt. 22:13; 24-51), but He declared them totally wrong about the identity of those condemned sinners.”

 

            I have written about hell in the past and have stated that as of this moment there is no one there and it will not be occupied until after the tribulation period when the beast and false prophet, along with Satan will be sent there.  Satan will come out at the end of the millennial kingdom to start a small conflict at which it will be stopped.  After the earth and universe is destroyed the Great White Throne Judgment will take place and then those there will be cast into hell where they will spend eternity.  Jesus told a story of the rich man and Lazarus which shows us where the loss who have died are now.  After His resurrection Jesus took all those who were dead believers to heaven and so only the lost are there now.

 

            There is a difference between a physical descendant of Abraham, which is a great privilege and advantage, and a true descendant of Abraham, which are the true Jews as the children of Abraham’s spiritual faith, not the children of physical body whom God adopts are His true children.  As mentioned the physical offspring of Abraham will have no place “at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.”  MacArthur adds “By their rejection of the Son of God—especially in light of the irrefutable evidence of His miracles—they prove they are really sons of Satan (John 8:42-44).  Because they are false ‘sons of the kingdom,’ they annul the divine promise, forfeit the divine blessing, and are forever barred from the divine ‘kingdom.’  That was the substance of Jesus’ brief but sobering message to the unbelieving Jews just before He pronounced the healing of the centurion’s slave.”

 

            We can see Jesus give another reaffirmation of the greatness of the centurion’s faith as we read “Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed that very hour.”  What was Jesus affirmation?  That the servant was healed “at that very moment.”  We can see that the centurion had great faith before the healing so how much more faith do you think that he had after the healing of his servant by Jesus? 

 

            We end as we began with a quotation from John MacArthur, a very important quote:  “Jesus did not give the principle ‘as you have believed’ as a universal promise to all believers.  The principle of healing in proportion to faith was sovereignly applied as the Lord saw fit (see also, e. g., Matt 9:29).  Paul had absolute faith in God’s ability to heal him, and he personally experienced, and was often used as the instrument of, God’s miraculous healing.  But when he prayed three times in great earnestness for his ‘thorn in the flesh’ to be removed, the Lord’s answer to him was, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness’ (2 Cor. 12:7-9).”  I have mentioned many times before that the greatest miracle we see going on in today’s world is that a sinner is saved by grace.  A unbelieving sinner comes to the realization that he can do nothing about his own sin puts his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross, and then invites Him in to be his Savior and Lord.  That is the greatest miracle.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I don’t want to put God in a box so to say and think of Him as someone who must do what I ask, but to trust Him with what He has planned for me to do on earth for His glory.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I trust that the Lord will continue to bring more and more people to our revival prayer meetings on Wednesday evenings, and in the end will bring glory to the Lord as He brings revival to a church who for the most part as turned their backs against God.

 

3/30/2021 10:45 AM

 

PT-3 "The Respected Man: Gentile" (Matt. 8:5-13)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/29/2021 10:18 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                Focus:  PT-3 “The Respected Man: A Gentile”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 8:5-13

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, 6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented." 7 Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." 8 But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9  "For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it." 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. 11 “I say to

you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very moment.”

 

            We move on in this section of verses concerning the centurion, as he also understood delegation of power.  “For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.  And I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and comes, and to my slave, ‘do this! And he does it.”  This man recognized authority when he saw it, and he certainly saw it in our Lord Jesus Christ.  The centurion knew that if he had the power to make his soldiers and slaves do what he told them to do by simply giving them orders, Jesus’ supernatural powers could even more easily allow Him simply to “say the word” and this would cause his servant to be healed.  As I look at this section and what will follow as to what Jesus said about this man it makes me wonder how many who read this will understand that we as believers are to do the commands that Jesus has told us to follow.  Mostly I am speaking about praying, and specifically praying for revival, revival in my life, in my churches lives, and in my countries life, as it is needed like never before in our history.

 

            As I have stated that when Jesus heard this He was truly amazed and stated that He had not seen such faith in Israel, all of Israel.  MacArthur writes “Although, as God, Jesus knew all men’s hearts, in His humanness He was amazed that this Gentile soldier showed more genuine faith in Him than He had found with anyone in Israel.  Many Jews had believed in Jesus, but none had shown sincerity, sensitively, humility, love, and depth of faith of this Gentile soldier.  Even to His disciples Jesus would say a short time later, ‘You men of little faith’ (8:26).  Still later in His ministry He would say to Philip, ‘Have I been so long with you, and you have not come to know Me?’ (John 14:9).”

 

            Now we come to a difficult time in this section as Jesus goes on to say “many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”  MacArthur helps us understand this passage by writing “Those who had less spiritual advantage and less opportunity to know God’s truth—the Gentiles ‘from east and west’—would show greater response to the gospel than God’s own chosen people, who considered themselves to be ‘the sons of the kingdom’ simply by virtue of racial descent.”

 

            We will continue looking at this section as we begin, what I hope will be our last section in this series of verses.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is surely my desire to do the things that Jesus wants me to do in order to bring glory to His name.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trusting the Lord that my wife will have a successful surgery on her ear this coming Wednesday.

 

3/29/2021 10:47 AM

 

 

PT-2 "The Respected Man: A Gentile" (Matt. 8:5-13)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/28/2021 9:07 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                  Focus:  PT-2 “The Respected Man: A Gentile”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 8:5-13

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, 6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented." 7 Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." 8 But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9  "For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it." 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. 11 “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12  but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very moment.”

 

            I mentioned in our last SD that we will continue to write about this centurion as we begin today’s SD.  Let me begin by talking about how slaves were actually treated during this period of time, and that is that they were property and property could be done with what the owner of the property desired including having the slaves killed.  It is very rare I would think to find a man like this centurion who actually cared for this slave of his, cared so much for his servant to set him apart from the typical Roman soldier, who as stated could have had him killed because he could not function like he was suppose to.

 

            John MacArthur writes “But the centurion from Capernaum had no such inhumane ideas.  He was a seasoned and capable fighting man or he would not have been a centurion—who, as the title indicates, was responsible for a hundred men.  He was a man’s man, a soldier’s soldier.  Yet he had deep compassion for his dying slave boy and felt unworthy to approach Jesus personally.  Jesus knew the man’s heart and did not need to hear a direct request, either from the centurion or from the Jews who came in his behalf.  He simply responded in love, saying, ‘I will come and heal him.’”

 

            When Jesus came to heal the centurion’s slave the centurion saw Him and then sent some friends out to meet Jesus as seen in Luke 7:3.  In the centurions behalf they ‘answered and said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof.’  This man felt genuinely unworthy for Jesus to go to that much trouble for him, and he had no doubt also did not want Jesus to break the Jewish tradition of not coming into the house of a Gentile, for the centurion would have known all about this tradition being friends with Jews and even building them their Synagogue.

 

            We can see also that the centurion twice addressed Jesus as Lord which indicates much more than courtesy.  Jesus testified of this man who He had never seen that he had such greater faith than seen in all of Israel as seen in verse 10.  This centurion knew that Jesus was indeed God and consequently had the power to heal his paralyzed servant.  Now because his servant was too ill to be carried out to Jesus and because he felt unworthy to have Jesus enter his house, the centurion said to Him, “Just say the word and my servant will be healed.”  This is amazing faith on his part, something that had to have come from the Spirit of God.  I have to believe that one day when I get to heaven that I will meet this man there.

 

3/28/2021 9:30 AM

PT-1 "The Respected Man: A Gentile" (Matt. 8:5-13)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/27/2021 11:34 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-1 “The Respected Man: Gentile”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 8:5-13

 

            Message of the verses:  “5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, 6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented." 7 Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." 8 But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9  "For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it." 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. 11 "I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very moment.”

 

            We are talking about some, what some people would say strange things, done by the Lord Jesus Christ.  The first person Matthew talks about who Christ healed was a leper and not the second person is a Gentile, and next we will see Him heal a woman.  The first person that Jesus led to salvation spoken of in the Bible was a Samaritan woman found in John chapter four.  These are all people that the scribes and Pharisees hated, and yet Christ loves them, and continues to love people even today, people that others hate.

 

            There are some who believe that Jesus did all three of the healings we are talking about on the same day, and if that is so then Jesus entered Capernaum only a short while after healing the leper.  Capernaum would be later cursed by Jesus for their missing out on their great opportunity of having the Messiah live there for a long time, and seeing many miracles done there by Jesus.  “"And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day” (Matt. 11:23).  There is no Capernaum today only ruin, never built again just as Jesus stated. 

 

            Let us learn more about the centurion who came to Jesus.  First of all he was a Gentile, and second was a Roman soldier, and third he may have been a Samaritan because when Rome captured countries they would use people from that country to be trained as their soldiers, so this man, according to the scribes and Pharisees had three strikes against him.  Another thing we can learn from the account in Luke’s gospel account is that this man actually came to Jesus through some Jewish intermediaries, because he felt spiritually unworthy of approaching Jesus personally and perhaps also because he thought he would be rebuffed because of his military position. “1 When He had completed all His discourse in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum. 2 And a centurion’s slave, who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. 3 When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking Him to come and save the life of his slave. 4 When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored Him, saying, "He is worthy for You to grant this to him; 5 for he loves our nation and it was he who built us our synagogue’” (Luke 7:1-5).  The story in Luke says that as Jesus was close to where the slave was the man sent others to tell Jesus that he was not worthy of having Jesus come to his house, and perhaps the man knew that Jews were not suppose to come into a Gentile’s house.  The rest of the story is very similar to Matthew’s account. 

 

            We will conclude with a quotation about the servant from MacArthur’s commentary:  “Pais, here translated servant, literally means a young child.  Luke calls him a slave (doulos), indicating he was probably born into the slave household of the centurion.  In any case, the boy ‘was highly regarded’ by the centurion, who was now afraid that his servant would die (Luke 7:2).  ‘Lord’, he said to Jesus through his emissaries, ‘my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain.’  Whatever the disease was, it was paralyzing, painful, and fatal.  Like the leper, it seems the centurion was reluctant to ask Jesus specifically for a healing, since he simply states the young man’s terrible condition—although the request is clearly implied.”  I want to continue talking about the centurion and his relationship to this slave in our next SD as there are some interesting things to write about concerning the centurion. 

 

3/27/2021 12:01 PM

PT-5 "Wretched Man: Leper" (Matt. 8:1-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/26/2021 11:29 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  PT-5 “Wretched Man:  Leper”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 8:1-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’”

 

            When speaking of faith the first requirement of faith is obedience.  As soon as the leper was cleansed, “Jesus said to him, ‘Se that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and present the offering that Moses commanded, for a testimony of them.”  I mentioned in our introduction to the first fifteen verses in Matthew 8 that I had studied this same story when I was going through the book of Mark, and in that section from Mark, John MacArthur entitled his sermon “Jesus changes places with a Leper.”  Well the reason for that title is what we will be looking at in our SD for today, and the cause is that the leper did not obey the command that Jesus gave him which we just looked at in the highlighted part from above.  We must always obey what our Lord commands us to do, and if we don’t then there will be consequences as we will see in this section.  I have to say that if the situation that this leper was going through were something that I was going through for many years like him that there is a good chance that I would have done what he did.  This man received a new lease on life, a life that had kept him from being around people, a life of hurting, a life of having an awful odder to his body, a life of misery and hopelessness, and now all of this was turned around.  I can’t help but talk about the spiritual issues of what is going on here and that in a spiritual sense all people who are not born-again believers spiritually have the same issues as this leper.  I remember that once I became a believer that I wanted to tell all of my friends that I use to hang out with the good news of the gospel, and I expected them to rejoice with me to ask me questions about how they could have the same experience that I had, but they had no questions, and experienced no joy like was filling my soul once I became a believer on Jan. 26, 1974, sad to say that they are still spiritual lepers.

 

            Leviticus 14 tells of what a person is commanded to do after being cleansed from leprosy and I will leave that up to you to read if you are interested in that.

 

            MacArthur writes “Jesus may have told the man not to say anything about his healing in order not to increase the crowd’s adulation of Him simply as a miracle worker, or perhaps He wanted to discourage their looking to Him as a political deliverer.  It may have been that the Lord was still in His period of humiliation and that His exaltation by the crowd at this time would have been premature in the divine plan.

            “All of those reasons could have been involved, but Jesus’ instructions to ‘go, show yourself to the priest, and present the offering that Moses commanded,’ was specifically given ‘for a testimony to them,’ that is, to the multitude and especially to the Jewish leaders.”  I have to believe that was in the plan of our Lord more than anything and yet the man did not follow His command.  Think if the man goes up to Jerusalem to offer that sacrifice and the story that he could have told the priests whom he had to go to.  What a wonderful story, what a wonderful testimony could have happened, but failed to because he did not obey our Lord’s command.  This man had shown such confidence and humble faith in his joyous exuberance did not also show immediate obedience.  I mention looking at this in Mark’s gospel and he adds the following “But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere.”

 

            MacArthur writes “As Jesus remarked several times in various words, ‘Which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk? (Matt. 9:5; cf. Mark 2:9; Luke 5:23).  The Lord’s greatest purpose was to cleanse sin, not sickness, and even His physical cleansing became illustrations of the spiritual cleansing He offered.  The healing of leprosy was especially powerful in that regard, because its great physical destructiveness, pervasiveness, ugliness, and incurableness of sin.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am so thankful for the salvation that was given to me at the expense of my Savior and Lord.  Following His commands will continue to bring peace to my heart, but not following them will take joy from me.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I trust the Lord to continue to teach me the process of revival so that I can share it with our prayer group on Wednesday evening.

 

3/26/2021 12:22 PM

             

PT-4 "Wretched Man: Leper" (Matt. 8:1-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/25/2021 9:58 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                Focus:  PT-4 “Wretched Man: Leper”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 8:1-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’”

 

            I have one more thing to talk about that I probably should have put on yesterday’s SD.  It has more to do with the leper’s confidence as that is the way that he came to Jesus and he did that because he believed Jesus was compassionate, with reverence because he believed Jesus was truly God come in the flesh, with humility because he believed Jesus was sovereign, and with faith because he believed Jesus had the power to heal him.  We can see from this short paragraph a summation of the way this leper came to Jesus.

 

            So what happened when the leper came to Jesus in the way we have described?  In response to that faith, Jesus ‘stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.”  In the OT Law of Moses we can see that it is forbidden to touch a leper, because he was unclean.  “‘Or if he touches human uncleanness, of whatever sort his uncleanness may be with which he becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him, and then he comes to know it, he will be guilty.”  In MacArthur’s commentary he sites Leviticus 3:3, but I think that was in error as I believe he meant 5:3 which I have quoted above.  Although this verse does not specifically talk about lepers I believe that it concludes lepers who are unclean.  As we go through the problems with Covid one of the things that we miss especially in church is a hug, and that is what the lepers of Jesus day missed all of the time.  A very sad situation to say the least.

 

            Why did not Jesus just heal this man with the sound of His voice?  MacArthur writes on His touching the leper:  That simple act in itself was amazing, not in the sense of being sensational and spectacular—as are the supposed miracles of many modern healers—but simply in the fact that the Son of God lovingly condescended to touch the outcast of outcasts whom no other man would even come near.” Since leprosy is a picture of sin we are all lepers in the spiritual sense and Jesus came to earth in order to spiritual touch all who come to Him for salvation as He died on the cross for all of us spiritual lepers.

 

            In some of the miracles of healing that are found in the Gospels we can see kind of stages that it is done, and some like this one are instantaneous:  “Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”  Perhaps there are times since we have read over and over about this type of miracle that we don’t take the time to look more intensely at what just happened to this man.  Think about what we learned when in two earlier SD’s on this subject we took the time to see exactly what happens to a person’s body when they have leprosy, how limbs can fall off, how they smell and other awful things that happen to a leper.  Now Jesus touches the man and whatever was missing from that man’s body, whatever smell that man may have had it was all gone with the gentle touch of Jesus.  I certainly am not medical physician who possibly could tell us exactly what must have taken place for this man to be healed instantly, but he was.  Think once more about the spiritual things that happen to a spiritual leper once they become a believer in Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls.  There are many things that instantly happen to a person once they become a believer including having their sins forgiven, past, present, and future.  In receiving the Holy Spirit as a down payment to the wedding feast that will happen in heaven, to be sanctified which has three parts.  I am sure that I am missing some, but what we receive from our Lord once we are saved is the greatest gift anyone on earth could ever have, please don’t miss out on that gift. 

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Having my spiritual being healed is as stated above the best gift that I could ever receive and for that I am very thankful to the Lord for.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord that He will enlarge our group of believers who are praying for revival.  Thanks to the Lord for six more people joining or group last night, realizing that it is the Holy Spirit who is putting all of this together and so I ‘m in no way want to stress who He brings to our group.

 

3/25/2021 10:41 AM

PT-3 "Wretched Man: Leper" Matt. 8:1-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/24/2021 3:37 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                Focus:  PT-3 “Wretched Man: Leper”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 8:1-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’”

 

            Today we begin to look at how leprosy is a graphic illustration of sin.  Sin infects the whole person just like leprosy, it is ugly, loathsome, corrupting, contaminating, alienating, and it is also incurable by man.  The lepers in ancient times in Israel were vivid objects of lessons of sin.

 

            MacArthur states that there are four things about the leper found in our verses today that stand out.  The first thing was this man came to Jesus having great confidence.  I don’t suppose that we can totally grasp this truth not living in those times, but lepers just did not do things like that.  The leper certainly sensed a love and tenderness in Jesus that allowed him to approach Jesus without fear of reprisal, (he could have been stoned).  Another thing he could have been reprimanded.  Let me just say he would not have wanted to do this to a Jewish Pharisee.  Great confidence in Jesus was what caused him to come to him, for perhaps he had heard of some people that Jesus had already healed.  You are supposed to yell “unclean” “unclean” but he did not do this.

 

            Second, the man came to Jesus with great reverence.  The boldness that he had did not come from presumption but he came with humble adoration the way we all should approach Jesus.  MacArthur writes “When he reached Jesus he ‘bowed down to Him.’ Proskueno (from which comes ‘bowed down’) literally means to prostrate oneself and is most often translated ‘to worship’ (see Matt. 2:2; 4:9-10; John 4:20-24; Acts 7:43; Rev. 4:10; 19:10).  From the reverential nature of his request it seems that the leper addressed Jesus as ‘Lord’ not simply in the sense of ‘Sir,’ but as an acknowledgment of deity.  He felt he was in the presence of God and that therefore Jesus could heal him of his terrible disease.  It is both interesting and instructive to note that the scribes and Pharisees who were doubtlessly in the multitude that day were beautifully and richly attired, yet were inwardly corrupt, proud, and unbelieving.  By contrast, the leper appeared loathsome and repulsive on the outside, but inwardly he was reverent and believing.”

 

            Thirdly we see that the leper came to Jesus with humility.  This man truly expected Jesus to heal him but he did not demand for it to happen as he said “Lord, if You are willing.”  If it were the Lord’s will then it would happen and that was good enough for him.  Some people today want to claim something from the Lord, and that is not true humility at all.  We cannot demand things from the Lord as we must come in humility after all we are talking to God.

            The fourth is the leper came with faith, as he declared “You can make me clean.”  MacArthur writes “He literally said, ‘You have the power to make me clean.’ That is faith at its highest—the absolute conviction that God is able, coupled with humble submission to His sovereignty in the exercise of His power.  The man knew that Jesus was not obligated to heal him, but he also knew that He was perfectly capable of doing it.  He had the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who declared to Nebuchadnezzar, ‘If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king.  But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up’ (Dan. 3:17-18).

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Come to Jesus in the same way that this man did.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the Lord that He will bring those to our prayer meeting for revival the ones He wants there.

 

3/24/2021 4:51 PM

PT-2 "The Wretched Man: A Leper" (Matthe 8:1-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/23/2021 10:25 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus: PT-2 “The Wretched Man: A Leper”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 8:1-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus *said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’”

 

            I mentioned in our last SD that I did not really want to talk about all of the physical things that lepers had to deal with, but then I guess I had some second thoughts and decided to post two quotations about the physical problems of lepers.  I promise you that we will spend more time in looking at the spiritual things about lepers.  At any rate the quotation today comes from Dr. Paul Brand, a world-renowned expert of the treatment of Hansen’s disease, he writes:

 

“Hansen’s disease (HD) is cruel, but not at all the way other diseases are.  It primarily acts as an anesthetic, numbing the pain cells of hands, feet, nose, ears, and eyes.  Not so bad, really, one might think.  Most diseases are feared because of their pain—what makes a painless disease so horrible?

            “Hansen’s disease’s numbing quality is precisely the reason such fabled destruction and decay of tissue occurs.  For thousands of years people thought HD caused the ulcers on hands and feet and face which eventually led to rotting flesh and los of limbs.  Mainly through Dr. Brands research, it has been established that in 99 percent of the cases, HD only numbs the extremities.  The destruction follows solely because the warning system of pain is gone.

            How does the decay happen?  In villages of Africa and Asia, a person with HD has been known to reach directly into a charcoal fire to retrieve a dropped potato.  Nothing in his body told him not to. Patients at Brand’s hospital in India would work all day gripping a shovel with a protruding nail, or extinguish a burning wick with their bare hands, or walk on splintered glass.  Watching them, Brand began formulating his radical theory that HD was chiefly anesthetic, and only indirectly a destroyer.

            On one occasion, he tried to open the door of a little storeroom, but a rusty padlock would not yield.  A patient—an undersized, malnourished ten-year old—approached him smiling.

            ‘Let me try, sahib, doctor,’ he offered and reached for the key.  With a quick jerk of his hand he turned the key in the lock.

            Brand was dumfounded.  How could this weak youngster out-exert him?  His eys caught a telltale clue.  Was that a drop of blood on the floor?

            Upon examining the boy’s fingers, Brand discovered the act of turning the key had gashed a finger open to the bone; skin, fat, and joint were all exposed.  Yet the boy was completely unaware of it!  To him, the sensation of cutting his finger to the bone was no different from picking up a stone or turning a coin in his pocket.

            The daily routines of life ground away at the HD patient’s hands and feet, but no warning system alerted him.  If an ankle turned, tearing tendon and muscle, he would adjust and walk crooked.  If a rat chewed off a finger in the night, he would not discover it missing until the next morning…

            …Stanley Stein (author of Alone No Longer) went blind because of a cruel quirk of HD.  Each morning he would wash his face with a hot washcloth.  But neither his hand nor his face was sensitive enough to temperature to warn him that he was using scalding water.  Gradually he destroyed his eyes with his daily washing.  (Philip Yancey, Where Are You God When It Hurts? [Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 1977], 32-34).”

 

            Lord willing in our next SD we will look further at the following:  “Leprosy is a graphic illustration of sin.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I never want to become numb to sin like the leper is numb to feeling.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  In my devotional listening to the Bible today the following verse was very meaningful to me:  “Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one besides You to help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O LORD our God, for we trust in You, and in Your name have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against You’” (2 Chron. 14:11).

 

3/23/2021 10:54 AM

PT-1 "The Wretched Man: A Leper" (Matt. 8:1-4)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/22/2021 10:36 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus: PT-1 “The Wretched Man: A Leper”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  Matt. 8:1-4

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4  And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’”

 

            In the past we have spoken about how many of the people who followed Jesus were only doing so because of the fact that He could do miracles, and that was the case with many who came down the mountain with Him after He was preaching “The Sermon on the Mount.”  It seems that they were not looking for a Messiah, but just someone who could do miracles and perhaps free the nation of Israel from being under the power of the Romans.  John MacArthur calls these people “uncommitted observers.”

 

            We will be looking at a man who was a leper and when I was listening to the sermon for this section of Scripture MacArthur spoke a lot about what exactly a leper was as far as the physical problems that come with being a leper, and he also went into some detail from the Old Testament about what the priests had to do when it seemed that a person was a leper.  I am not sure that I want to get into all of those details but to say that being a leper was a terrible thing.  What I do want to get into is the spiritual things that go along with being a leper.  One of the things that I found interesting is that scholars have stated the this disease probably started in Egypt as they had found in some of the Pyramids bodies that actually had the disease of leprosy. 

 

            I think that what I will do is give a couple of quotations from different people that MacArthur quoted about this disease, and that will be all we will do for this SD.

 

            “In his book Unclean! Unclean! L. S. Huizenga describes some of the horrors of leprosy.”

 

“The disease which we today call leprosy generally begins with pain in certain areas of the body. Numbness follows.  Soon the skin in such spots loses its original color.  It gets to be thick, glossy, and scaly…As the sickness progresses, the thickened spots become dirty sores and ulcers due to poor blood supply.  The skin, especially around the eyes and ears, begins to bunch, with deep furrows between the swellings, so that the face of the affected individual begins to resemble that of a lion.  Fingers drop off or are absorbed; toes are affected similarly.  Eyebrows and eyelashes drop out.  By this time one can see the person in this pitiable condition is a leper. By a touch of the finger one can also feel it.  One can even smell it, for the leper emits a very unpleasant odor.  Moreover, in view of the fact that the disease-producing agent frequently also attacks the larynx, the leper’s voice acquires a grating quality.  His throat become hoarse, and you can now not only see, feel, and smell the leper, but you can hear his rasping voice.  And if you stay with him for some time, you can even imagine a peculiar taste in your mouth, probably due to the odor.  ([Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1927], 149; cited in William Hendriksen, The Gospel of Matthew [Grand Rapids” Baler. 1973]. 388)”

 

                        In looking at this next quotation I will wait to do it in our next SD as it is rather long.  The quotation will talk about Hansen’s disease which is what leprosy is called today, and then after that I believe that will be sufficient in understanding what this disease, physically is all about.

 

3/22/2021 11:03 AM