SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/29/2021 9:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Perspective of the People”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 8:33-34
Message of the verses: “33 The herdsmen
ran away, and went to the city and reported everything, including what had
happened to the demoniacs. 34 And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus;
and when they saw Him, they implored Him to leave their region.”
So
we first of all see that the herdsmen ran away after they say what happened to
the pigs, and they ran into town to tell everyone in the town what happened,
and this indicates they realized the connection between the two demon-possessed
men and what took place with the animals.
The mass suicide of the pigs proved that Jesus certainly had cast the
demons out of the two men. There is
another thing that happened to prove that the demons were cast out by Jesus and
that is that the two men were sitting clothed and in their right mind as seen
in Luke 8:35.
One
wonders what the owners of the pigs were thinking, were they thinking that they
lost their fortune, which is probably what they were thinking, but did they
realize that two men who had wreck havoc on the town, not to mention the
hardship they had gone through were now in their right mind and were able to be
good citizens of their town now.
So
we see the whole town came out to see Jesus, perhaps a revival will take
place. Well not the case. I have to believe that these people had heard
of Jesus and what He was doing with the many miracles and His preaching, but
this does not seem to matter to these people, for they all seemed to be more
concerned with the pigs and not the two healed men of demon possession. One thing I want to point out and that is the
owners of the pigs are not mentioned here or in the other two gospel accounts
of this story. The issue was not the
demons, the pigs, or the two men but the issue was Jesus.
MacArthur
writes “The people of the city (probably Gerasa) did not even give Him the reluctant
reverence shown by the demons. They did not seem the least interested in
finding out who He was or why He had come to their area. They wanted nothing to do with Him, and ‘entreated
Him to depart from their region.’ They
had at first simply come out ‘to see what it was that had happened,’ but when ‘they
came to Jesus and observed the very man who had the ‘legion’,…they became frightened’
(Mark 5:14-15). They were not angry or
resentful but scared.” Now we have seen people frightened before after a miracle had been done by Jesus, like His own
disciples were more afraid of the miracle of calming the sea and the storm than
the sea and the storm itself.
Let
us look at Isaiah 6 for a moment to understand that when unholy men come face
to face with holy God what happens. I am not saying that Isaiah was not a
believer, but all believers still sin and that was Isaiah’s reaction to facing
God as he knew that like Peter he was a sinful man. 1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a
throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his
face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called
out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The
whole earth is full of His glory." 4 And the foundations of the thresholds
trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with
smoke. 5 Then I said,
"Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I
live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD
of hosts." 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal
in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my
mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and
your iniquity is taken away and your
sin is forgiven." 8 Then I heard
the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for
Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!’” (Notice the highlighted
verses)
There
is nothing said of what happened to the people of the city, as we only know that
they saw or at least heard of a great miracle, and saw the evidence of it, and
yet rejected the Man who performed that miracle, and thus rejected the miracle
of receiving eternal life from this same Man if they would have been interested
in it.
In
this section we see the first opposition to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. Now we don’t see the people ridicule or
persecute Jesus; they simply asked Him to leave them alone. This happens to people in the world every day
as they just don’t want to bother with the Person who can change their lives forever,
forgiving their sins, and giving them the promise of living with Him forever
and ever.
Think
for a moment of a class of students taking a test and none of the students pass
the test, in fact only one gets a great grade and the rest have scores in the
30’s. What do those people in the 30’s
think of that person who scored almost a perfect score? I have to say that they were very
uncomfortable being around that person as that person is head and shoulders
above them. That is something like the
city people who failed the test being around Jesus who is perfect, they were
all uncomfortable being around Him. I
have to say that I am not uncomfortable being around Jesus, but if in my
humanness I meet Him in His holiness I would do just like Isaiah did.
Well
at the end of the story we see one of the former demon possessed men begging
Jesus to let him go with Him. Jesus
wanted that man to become a missionary for Him and to tell others the great
miracle that had happened to Him. We are
not told what exactly happened to this person, but I have to believe that this
man was a very successful missionary for the cause of Christ.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Being uncomfortable around Jesus is okay, not
being somewhat uncomfortable around Him is certainly not okay. Awe and respect and being worshipful is what
I should be everyday to my Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To continue more about Jesus each and every
day so that I can serve Him while on this earth.
4/29/2021 10:19 AM
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