SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2021 9:57 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Illustration”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 9:14-17
Message of the verses: “14 Then the
disciples of John came to Him, asking, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast,
but Your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to them, "The
attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them,
can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast. 16 "But no
one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away
from the garment, and a worse tear results. 17 “Nor do people put new
wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and
the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both
are preserved.’”
The
way that wine was stored in this time period may be a bit gross to us living in
a day and age where bottles have been the way it is stored now. Wine was stored in the skins of animals, and
this is what you may think is the gross part, as after the animal is killed
they cut off its head and then use the skin below where the head was and skin
it off the animal and dry it out in order to put wine into it. Once it was dried out they would put new wine
into it which would cause the skin to stretch because of the wine being
new. If one would take an old wineskin
and put new wine into it then the wine would cause it to continue to stretch
and burst. You put new wine in new wine
skins and old wine into old wine skins.
MacArthur concludes: “In the same
way, the only life that can contain true righteousness is the new life given by
God when a person repents of his sin and trusts in Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior.
“The
pharisaical, legalistic, external, self-righteous system of traditional Judaism
could neither connect with nor contain the ministry and message of Christ. Consequently, that system had only one option—to
oppose and seek to eliminate Christ, which is what they did.”
There
are some who believe and probably teach that once the teachings of Christ in
the church came about after His death and resurrection that Law went away and
only grace is what we are dealing with.
This is not true as one can read through the New Testament letters and
find that nine of the Ten Commandments are taught. As mentioned earlier Jesus did not come to
destroy the law but to fulfill the law, which is exactly what He did, and He
did it for us. MacArthur writes “The ‘old
wineskins’ were not the teachings of the Old Testament but the rabbinical
traditions that had come to overshadow, supersede, and often contradict the
divinely revealed truths of the Old Testament.”
This
passage can help us discover three marks of the true believer. The first on is like Matthew, the true
believer follows the Lord. We cannot
question the Lord, but do as He desires us to do and we mostly find this by
reading His Word, praying, and listening to sermons to help us determine what
God’s will is for us. We have seen in
our study of this section of Matthew nine that when the Lord asked Matthew to
follow Him he dropped everything and followed Him. MacArthur adds “During a postresurrection
appearance, Jesus said to Peter, ‘Follow Me!’
But ‘Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them;…[and]
therefore seeing him said to Jesus, ‘Lord,’ and what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to remain
until I come, what is that to you? You
follow Me!’’(John 21:19-22). The true
believer is not always questioning God’s truth and resisting His standards for
living.”
Point
two: The true believe has compassion on
the unsaved like Matthew, as he has a deep desire to lead others to the
Lord. I suppose it is fair to say that
there are times when this desire is slowed, but the true desire to lead others
to the Lord will always be true of a true believer.
Point
three: A true believer forsakes legalism
and ritualism. The true believer will
only fast as an expression of genuine spiritual concern, and he does not try to
attach his new life in Christ to his old ritual or religion or try to fit it
somehow into his old patterns. This can
happen, especially in new believers as I experienced for sometime after
becoming a believer, but after a time I had to make the decision who I would
hang around with in order to stay away from old habits.
At
the end of MacArthur’s commentary on his chapter he quotes a song written by
John Newton who in the song chronicles his own conversion which describes the
transforming power of Christ.
“In evil
long I took delight,
Unawed
by shame or fear,
Till a
new object struck my sight,
And
stopped my wild career.
I saw
One hanging on a tree,
In agony
and blood;
He fixed
His loving eyes on me,
As near
His cross I stood.
How can
it be, upon a tree
The savior
died for Me?
My soul
is thrilled, my heart is filled,
To think
he died for me.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I can concur with that song, something I had
never sung or heard of but it is certainly true in my case as it was in Newton’s.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the
Lord to send the people who have a burden for revival in our church to come to
our revival prayer meeting this evening.
5/26/2021 10:30 AM
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