SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/18/2021 11:01 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Response to the Sermon”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
7:28-29
Message of the verses: “28 When Jesus had
finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29 for He was
teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”
Well
we have finally come to the end of the 7th chapter of Matthew as far
as our SD’s are concerned. It has been a
wonderful experience to study the first seven chapters of Matthew, highlighted
by the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord’s Prayer being a special highlight of
that wonderful sermon. I am in a way sad
to move on but move on we must to see what our gracious Lord has in store for
us as we continue our journey through the gospel of Matthew.
We
ended our last SD talking about how Jesus was speaking with authority which
astounded the crowd. All of these things
were important for the crowd to hear, and it was entirely appropriate, even
unavoidable, that they should be amazed, after all how would we feel sitting in
that crowd listening to Jesus, but we as true believers have that same privilege
as we open up the Word of God each day to study it, as we are empowered by the
Holy Spirit of God to aid us in our understanding of it. However I would have still liked being there but
knowing what I know today, but there is another place that I would have loved
to be with the Lord Jesus Christ and that takes place in the 24th
chapter of Luke’s gospel as two men beginning at Luke 13 were on the road to
Emmaus and Jesus walked with them telling them about the things in the OT that
spoke of Him.
Now
as we look at the amazement of the crowd we know that Jesus did not tell them
what He told them in this sermon for their amazement, or even simply for their
information, but for their salvation.
Jesus did not intend merely to show them the narrow gate and the narrow
way, but Jesus pleaded with them to enter that gate and to follow that way,
which He would make accessible by going to the cross and paying the penalty for
their sins.
The
problem is that most people only watched and listened, and they only heard and
considered, but the problem is that they did not decide which way to go. Even by not deciding, however they did
decide. MacArthur writes “For whatever
reasons-possibly for no conscious reason at all—they decided to stay on the
broad road.
“C.
S. Lewis gives a remarkable illustration from his own life of what the attitude
is of many who hear the gospel:
‘When I was a child I often
had toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me
something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to
sleep. But I did not go to my mother—at least,
not till the pain became very bad. And
the reason I did not go was this. I did
not doubt she would give me the aspirin:
but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next
morning. I could not get what I wanted
out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without having my
teeth set permanently right. And I knew
those dentists; I knew the started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth
which had not yet begun to ache. They
would not let sleeping dogs lie.’ (Mere Christianity
[New York: Macmillan, 1977,], p. 177).’
“It is that very sort of thinking that
keeps many people out of the kingdom:
the price is more than they want to pay.
It goes on to say, in the imagined words of Christ ‘You have free will,
and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand
that I am going to see this job through…..I will never rest, nor let you rest,
until you are literally perfect—until My Father can say without reservation
that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with Me’ (p.
158).
“That
is the decision the Lord demands before He can trust empty hearts, with their
empty words and empty works, into full hearts that produce the good works for
which they are re-created. It is God’s
great desire that no person perish and that every person ‘come to repentance’
(2 Pet. 3:9), that he might ‘be filled up to all the fulness of God’ (Eph.
3:16-19). That only became possible
through the Savior’s death and resurrection, which climaxed His work for sinful
man and will be the great conclusion of Matthew’s good news.”
With
that quotation we end our little over a year study of the Sermon on the
Mount: Take heed and listen.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful for what the Lord has taught me
as I studied His great sermon. I am
thankful that after studying the Lord’s prayer that he touched my heart for
revival for me, and for our church, and for our country, and for the world
before the soon coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord will bring more people
to our prayer group for revival next week, and that He will grow our numbers,
and that our prayers will be answered for revival which I pray will bring more
people into the kingdom, into the church so that it will climax with the last
person in the church age to be saved and the rapture will take place and we
will all in the church age be with our Lord.
3/18/2021 11:31 AM
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