SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/2/2021 9:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “Jesus
Power over Sin”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
9:1-8
Message of the verses: “1 Getting into a
boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city. 2 And they
brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to
the paralytic, "Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven." 3 And
some of the scribes said to themselves, "This fellow
blasphemes." 4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, "Why are you
thinking evil in your hearts? 5 "Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are
forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’? 6 "But so that you may know that
the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" — then He
*said to the paralytic, "Get up, pick up your bed and go home." 7 And
he got up and went home. 8 But when the crowds saw this, they were
awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”
As
we begin this third SD on the introduction to Matthew 9:1-8 we must think of
why it was that our Lord Jesus Christ was separated from His Father, leaving
heaven to become a man and live for 33 years in a human body. The reason goes all the way back to the third
chapter of Genesis, and that is where we find sin enter into the human
race. That is why Jesus came to planet
earth to bring about the means of forgiveness, forgiveness from the Father for
sin, something every human being who is born is born with. Since there are no other beings living on
planet earth that means that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God,” however I suppose we could say that there are angels who visit our
planet, but Jesus certainly did not die for fallen angels as all fallen angels
will spend eternity in the lake of fire.
We
have been looking at the different miracles that were chosen by Matthew to put
into his Gospel, and we have seen supernatural acts of healing people with a
touch, healing people He never came into contact with, calming a storm, casting
demons out of two men, and now we will see in this short section Jesus healing
a man who could not walk, but had faith to come to see Jesus for not just
healing of the body, but healing of his soul, for it is entirely possible that the
cause of this man’s physical problem was due to sin and he needed to be
forgiven, which is what Jesus told Him that he was. All of the things which I have mentioned that
Jesus did would be things that He must show He could do in order to be the King
in His Kingdom.
MacArthur
writes “Matthew majors on the authority of Christ. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he
reports that Jesus ‘was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their
scribes’ (7:29). Those great teachings
demonstrate His moral and theological authority. Throughout the book His miracles demonstrate
His authority over both the natural and spirit worlds, and at the end of the
book He declares, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,’
and then sends out His disciples to teach and minister in that authority
(28:18-20).”
Jesus
was declaring His sovereign authority in order to rule as He demonstrated the
things that He did while here on earth.
Now in this present passage He is demonstrating His sovereignty
authority to redeem.
As
we look at the beginning of verse one we see the words “His city” and this is
not speaking of Nazareth which was the city that He grew up in, but is here
talking about Capernaum. In Luke 4:29-31
we can see what happened to Jesus while at Nazareth:“29 and they got up and
drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their
city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. 30 But passing
through their midst, He went His way. 31 And He came down to Capernaum, a city
of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath.” Jesus was rejected in His own city in which
He was brought up. It is very possible
that is the reason He began to live at Capernaum, and also probably lived in
the house of Peter while He was ministering there.
MacArthur
concludes “The events and teachings of Matthew 9:2-8 can be represented by six
key words: faith, forgiveness, fury,
forensic, force, and fear.”
5/2/2021 9:37 AM
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