PT-3 "Intro to Matt. 9:33b-35

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/24/2021 9:15 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-3 Intro to Matt. 9:33b-35

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                               Reference: Matthew 9:33b-35

 

            Message of the verses:  “and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel." 34 But the Pharisees were saying, "He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons."

             35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.”

 

            I don’t think that I put the title to the chapter that we are looking at as we follow the commentary of John MacArthur to help us get through the gospel of Matthew.  “Responding to Jesus’ Power” is the title of the chapter and as we have seen throughout the nine miracles that Jesus did that after three miracles there will be a dialogue from what has happened, and this is the dialogue after the last of the three miracles found in the last three miracles found in Matthew chapter nine.

 

            We have been talking about the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ makes a difference, and what I am trying to say is that He is the dividing point of all mankind as far as there are only two kinds of people in the world, the lost who will have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, and thus they will end up in hell, and then the saved who love the Lord because He has saved them and will be with Him throughout eternity.  Now in Matthew seven we talked about the two men who built their houses, one on the sand which will fall, and one on the rock which will stand.  This is another picture of the difference of those who believe and those who don’t.

 

            MacArthur writes “Using still another figure, the Lord said, “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it’ (Matt. 16:25).  On another occasion He said, ‘Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven’ (Matt. 10:32-33).  Those who identify themselves with God’s Son, Jesus Christ, God will identify as His own children.  Jesus made clear that His peace is only for those who belong to Him.  For those who reject Him, He does not ‘bring peace, but a sword.  For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household’ (vv. 34-36).”

 

            There is a parable that Jesus spoke found in Matthew 21:28-31, that He spoke specifically to the unbelieving chief priests and elders found in Jerusalem.  This parable has always been somewhat of a mystery to me, not that I really did not understand it, but that I always felt that I can learn more truth from it.  Let us look at the parable:  “28 "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 “The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.”  MacArthur gives to me a better understand to this parable as he writes:  “The second son represents irreligious and ungodly people who come to recognize their sin and repent of it, turning to God for salvation.  The first son represents religious hypocrites who make an outward profession of God but are inwardly rebellious against Him.  Whether religious or irreligious, only those who turn to God through Jesus Christ can be saved.”  If my memory is correct this happened at the end of Jesus’ ministry, right before He would go to the cross, and before this parable Jesus was being asked many questions from those “spiritual leaders” who were trying to trick Him, and at the end of those questions Jesus tells this parable.

 

            Lord willing we will conclude this introduction in our next SD as we begin to look at something that the Apostle Paul wrote on this theme that the human race is divided into believers and unbelievers.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I found a good illustration from an earlier SD from the book of Ephesians as I am posting those SD’s on my other blog, and it had to do with “election” a very touchy subject, and one no one on earth can truly understand.  The illustration was one that had great meaning to me as I use to run a crane with a large magnet on it and that magnet like all magnets would only pick up metal objects, and this it divided the iron and steel from metals which are not and thus cannot be picked up by that magnet.  The magnet divides like election divides, and again I don’t understand this but I do believe it because that is what the Bible teaches.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord for revival in my heart, in our church, and in the church in our country and around the world, that God will bring about a great revival before the Lord comes in the clouds to take us to be with Him.

 

6/24/2021 9:47 AM