SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/6/2021 10:11 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Jesus
was Touchable and Impartial”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
9:20-22
Message of the verses: “20 And a woman who had been suffering from a
hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His
cloak; 21 for she was saying to herself, "If I only touch His garment, I
will get well." But Jesus turning and seeing her said, "Daughter,
take courage; your faith has made you well." At once the woman was made
well.”
We
have been talking about what Jesus said to this woman showing that this woman
was not a believer, and this was similar to what He said to the prostitute who
washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair to dry them. Then there was Bartimaeus seen in Luke 7:50
Jesus said that “Your faith has saved you,” clearly indicating that the
restoration was entirely spiritual (because no physical healing was involved)
and that it resulted from the forgiveness of sins based on trust in the Lord as
seen in verse 48 of Luke 7.
John
MacArthur writes “It is unfortunate that most English translations do not make
clear that all of the renderings of ‘made well’ and ‘saved’ just mentioned—which
in each case the Lord Himself specifically said resulted from the person’s
faith—come from the same Greek verb (sozo).
That fact strongly implies that a redemptive aspect was involved in each
of those incidents.”
Now
there is another side to this that we also see in many of the gospel accounts
where Jesus healed someone, even multitudes of people, and this was done
without any faith on their part or the part of another person. Jesus did perform His miracles of healing by
His sovereign will, often in response to faith, but not conditioned by it. We recently look at the healing of the centurion’s
servant and his servant did not have any faith spoken of, and what about Jairus’
daughter, as she could not have any faith for she was dead. But no one is ever saved apart from faith,
and there seems reason to believe that the woman who touched Jesus’ garment
that day trusted Him for spiritual as well as physical healing.
Now
there are two things that bring men and women to Jesus Christ and that are
deep-felt personal need and also genuine faith and the woman with the
hemorrhage certainly had both.
We
have been writing the word “impartiality” in the focus for four days now and
what that implies is that Jesus was impartial in dealing with this very poor
woman who had the issue of blood and also Jairus whose daughter was dying. Jairus was a very responsible leader in the
Jewish community so that shows the impartiality of Jesus when you compare the
two.
We
know that it was the purpose of Jesus when He came to earth to seek and to save
those who are lost, but one of the problems that needs to be overcome is that a
person really needs to know that they are lost before the miracle of salvation can
be given to them by the Lord.
I
want to look at 1 Corinthians 1:26-28 “26 For consider your calling, brethren, that
there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of
the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the
despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the
things that are.” These verses show
impartiality for sure.
The
following comes from the sermon that John MacArthur was preaching that goes
along with these verses:
“I
was reading this week a very interesting book called Fearfully and Wonderfully
Made, written by Dr. Paul Brand and Phil Yancey. It’s a book you ought to read
– tremendous. In one section of it, he talks about how the people of God are
such an unlikely bunch. And he quotes from novelist Frederick Buechner, who
said this, “Who could’ve predicted that God would choose not Esau, the honest
and reliable, but Jacob, the trickster and heel? Who could have predicted that
God would put his finger on Noah, who hit the bottle? Or on Moses, who was
trying to beat the rap in Midian for braining a man in Egypt. And if it weren’t
for the honor of the thing, He’d just as soon let Aaron go back and face the
music. Who could have predicted that God would choose the prophets who were a
ragged lot, mad as hatters, most of them.”
And then Paul Brand adds, “The exception seems to
be the rule. The first humans God created went out and did the only thing God
asked them not to do. The man he chose to head a new nation known as God’s
people tried to pawn off his wife on an unsuspecting Pharaoh. And the wife,
herself, when told at the ripe old age of 91 that God was ready to deliver the
son He had promised her, broke into rasping laughter in the face of God. Rahab,
a harlot, became revered for her great faith. And Solomon, the wisest man who
ever lived, went out of his way to break every proverb he so astutely composed.
“Even after Jesus, the pattern continued. The two
disciples who did the most to spread the Word after His departure, John and
Peter, were the two He had rebuked most often for petty squabbling and
muddleheadedness. And the apostle Paul, who wrote more books than any other
Bible writer, was selected for the task while kicking up dust whirls from town
to town sniffing out Christians to torture. Jesus had nerve in trusting the
high-minded ideals of love and unity and fellowship to this group. No wonder
cynics have looked at the church and sighed, ‘If that group of people is
supposed to represent God, I’ll quickly vote against Him.’ Or as Nietzsche
expressed it, ‘His disciples will have to look more saved if I’m to believe in
their Savior.’”
We are a motley crew, aren’t we? The ignoble and
the weak and the foolish. But we all have this in common, we have a sense of
desperate need, and we have faith to believe. So Jesus is impartial. “God is,”
says the apostle, “no respecter of” – what? – “persons.” There’s neither male
nor female, Jew nor Greek, bond or free, rich or poor. All are one.”
MacArthur
concludes this section: “How wonderful
that God is more gracious than man. God
never excuses disobedience, unfaithfulness, or any other sin. But He will forgive every sin that is placed
under the atoning death of His son, Jesus Christ. Position, prestige, or possessions give no
advantage with Him, and lack of those things gives no disadvantage. As Peter learned only after much resistance
to the idea, ‘God is not one to show partiality’ (Acts 10:34; cf. 1 Pet.
1:17). In Christ ‘there is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor
female’ (Gal. 3:28).”
6/6/2021 10:41 PM
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