PT-2 "The Call of Judas" (Matt. 10:4b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/31/2021 9:56 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  PT-2 “Judas’s Call”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 10:4b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”

 

            We want to continue to go through this section about the call of Judas as it is very important for us to understand why Jesus called Judas.  I promised in our last SD to look at some Old Testament passages which have to do with Judas, although his name is not mentioned, but after his deed we know that the prophecies were about him.  David predicted Christ’s betrayal, and actually it was 1000 years before it happened as he wrote the following in Psalm 41:9 “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.”  Let us compare a couple of more Psalms at this time with that one:  “12 For it is not an enemy who reproaches me, Then I could bear it; Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me, Then I could hide myself from him. 13 But it is you, a man my equal, My companion and my familiar friend; 14 We who had sweet fellowship together Walked in the house of God in the throng. 15 Let death come deceitfully upon them; Let them go down alive to Sheol, For evil is in their dwelling, in their midst” (Psalm 55:12-15).  “20 He has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him; He has violated his covenant. 21 His speech was smoother than butter, But his heart was war; His words were softer than oil, Yet they were drawn swords” (Psalm 55:20-21).  MacArthur adds “Although that passage primarily referred to David, its greater significance applied to Jesus Christ, as He Himself declared (John 13:18).  “"I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘HE WHO EATS MY BREAD HAS LIFTED UP HIS HEEL AGAINST ME.’”

 

            David was not the only one who wrote about this event as Zechariah even predicted the exact price of the betrayal when he wrote the following in Zechariah 11:12-13 “12 I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. 13 Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them." So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.”  Again MacArthur adds “At the Lord’s command, the prophet had shepherded the Lord’s people (vv. 4-11), and the wages they paid Zechariah represented the ‘magnificent price’ at which their descendants would value the Messiah Himself.”

 

            Next we want to look at John 17, Jesus’ High Priestly prayer, and we will look at verse 12 as He mentions the one who betrayed Him there “"While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”  Martin Luther translated the phrase “son of Perdition” as “lost child,” that is, a child whose nature and intention is to be continually wayward and lost.  We see from this passage that Jesus lost none of the Twelve except the one who was confirmed in his sin and refused to be saved.  MacArthur writes “He chose Judas in order to fulfill Scripture, knowing that Judas would reject that choice.”  We see here why Jesus chose Judas and I know that some will have a problem with this, but one must remember that it was Judas’s decision to do what he did as we know that the Lord can do nothing wrong so we cannot blame the Lord for what Judas did.

 

            I desire to finish this very important section in our next SD as I do not want to put too much on these SD’s about the call of Judas so that we can think about what happened and why it happened.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to remember that God has His own plans and all of them will be fulfilled.  I have to remember that when I pray and not always think about what the outcome of my prayers should be answered in the way that I want them to be answered.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will answer some things that I am praying about and do it in His own way.

 

8/31/2021 10:26 AM

PT-1 "The Call of Judas" (Matt. 10:4b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/30/2021 11:01 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                 Focus:  “The Call of Judas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 10:4b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”

 

            The things that we will looking at in these next couple of SD’s about the call of Judas will take some hard thinking to understand what I am going to write about.  I suppose that one of the reasons that we has humans don’t always understand the things of God is because first of all we are human, and second we do not know, and perhaps will never know the deep things of God.  I have mentioned in many of my SD’s that to understand as best we can about the attributes of God will then help us better understand some of the deeper things about God.

 

            We have mentioned that Judas is always mentioned as the last apostle in all of the lists of the apostles, but there is no specific mention of when he was called in the Gospels.  We see him first in Matthew’s listing with no indication as to where or how Jesus called him, and so obviously he was attracted to Jesus, and he stayed with Him until the end of or Lord’s ministry, far past the time when man of the other false disciples had left Jesus as seen in John 6:66.

 

            As far as evidence that Judas had a spiritual interest in Jesus we cannot find any.  So what was the reason that Judas was attracted to Jesus?  I think that it is safe to say that from the beginning that Judas expected Jesus to become a powerful religious and political leader and so he wanted to use the association with Him for selfish reasons.  Judas could see Jesus’ obvious miracle-working power as well as His great influence over the multitudes.  Think about if what Judas was thinking would have been true of Jesus as being a political ruler who could lead the Jews against the Romans and defeat them.  Think about it in the miracles that He did as far as feeding the people by manufacturing food for them and if any got killed then He could just raise them from the dead.  I think that this was appealing to Judas’s thinking.  The problem was that is not what Jesus was going to do, at least not at this time, that is defeating the Romans.  However when one looks at the prophecy of the tribulation period and at the end of it when Jesus comes back to planet earth to defeat those who are fighting as described in Revelation chapter nineteen then one could say that Jesus will be defeating the Romans as the prophecy of Antichrist shows that the antichrist will actually bring about and be leader of the territory of which the Roman Empire had.

 

            We do not find any interest in the coming kingdom for Christ’s sake, or even for the sake of his fellow Jews, but only for the sake of whatever personal gain that he might derive from being in the Messiah’s inner circle of leadership.  I think that we can be sure that Judas was motivated by selfishness, that he nevertheless followed the Lord in a half-hearted way, that is until he was finally convinced that Jesus’ plans for the kingdom were entirely opposed to his own plans for the kingdom.

 

            John MacArthur writes “Christ chose Judas intentionally and specifically, ‘for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him’ (John 6:64).  Although the disciples did not at the time understand what He meant, Jesus alluded to His betrayal a year or more before it occurred.  ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’  Jesus told them soon after the false disciples at Capernaum turned away from Him.  John explains that ‘He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him’ (vv. 70-71).”

 

            Lord willing that in our next SD we will begin to look at some of the OT prophecies that speak of the betrayal of our Lord.

 

8/30/2021 11:26 AM

His Name (Matt. 10:4b)

 

SPIRIRUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2021 9:54 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                            Focus:  “His Name”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:ab

 

            Message of the verse:  “And Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”

 

            In today’s short SD we will be looking at what the name of Judas Iscariot means.  Judas at this time period was a very common name as even one of our Lord’s half-brothers was named Judas, but when we read his letter in the Word of God it is called Jude, as I suppose that he did not want to be identified with the name Judas.  Judas was the second name for one of the other apostles, Thaddaeus as we saw when we looked at him in an earlier SD.  Judas is a personalized form of Judah, the southern kingdom during the Jewish monarchy and the Roman province of Judea during the time of Christ.  There are some scholars who believe that the name means “Yahweh (or Jehovah) leads,” and others believe that it refers to one who is the object of praise.  Now with either meaning, it was a tragic misnomer in the case of Judas Iscariot.  MacArthur writes “No human being has ever been less directed by the Lord or less worthy of praise.”

 

            Now let us look at “Iscariot” to see what this name means.  Man of Kerioth and that was a very small town in Judea, which was about twenty-three miles south of Jerusalem and some seven miles from Hebron.  Here is an interesting fact “Judas is the only apostle whose name includes a geographical identification, possibly because he was the only Judean among the Twelve.  All the others, including Jesus, were from Galilee in the north.  Judean Jews generally felt superior to the Jews of Galilee; and although Judas himself was from a rural village, he probably did not fit well into the apostolic band” writes John MacArthur.

 

Lord willing we will be looking at the call of Judas in our next SD, and that section will also be very interesting.

 

8/29/2021 10:06 AM

Intro to Judas (Matt. 10:4b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2021 9:46 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                        Focus: “Intro to Judas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:4b

 

            Message of the verse:  “and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”

 

            It was on my walk yesterday that I listened to the hour sermon that John MacArthur spoke about Judas.  I have to say that I learned a lot of things about Judas and it is my hope that as we go through the life of Judas that we will all learn some of these very interesting things about him, things that will include what his name means, about his call, about his character, about his progressive rejection, his betrayal, his death, and then lessons learned from the life of Judas will conclude our study of Judas which will conclude our study of “The Master’s Men,” found in the early verses of Matthew chapter ten.

 

            I have to say that this introduction to Judas will be a very short SD, which fits into what I usually do on the weekends of having shorter SD’s.  I think that what I will do, because of the shortness of this introduction to Judas that I will quote from MacArthur’s commentary what he has written in his introduction to this man whose name has not been named by many children by their parents since what Judas now represents.

 

            “Among the twelve apostles, one stands out against the backdrop of the others as a lonely, tragic misfit, the epitome [essence] of human disaster.  He is the vilest, most wicked man in Scripture.  In the lists of the apostles he is always named last and, with the exception of Acts 1:13, is always identified as Jesus’ betrayer.  For two thousand years the name Judas Iscariot has been a byword for treachery.

 

            “Forty verses in the New Testament mention the betrayal of Jesus, and each of them is a reminder of Judas’s incredible sin.  After the description of his death and his replacement among the twelve in Acts 1, his name is never again mentioned in Scripture.  In Dante’s Inferno Judas occupies the lowest level of hell, which he shares with Lucifer, Satan himself.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There are two beings, one angelic, and one human who have had the most light given to any about who God is and what Jesus would do in order to take care of sin, and the one of course is Lucifer, and the other Judas Iscariot.  The punishment of persons in hell is not all the same as I believe it has to do with how much light was given to a person, and with the rejection of that light the harsher the punishment and that is why I totally agree with what Dante has written in his work “Inferno.”  I am thankful for the light that God has given to me, and it is my desire to share that light with those who read the blogs that I write and those who are in my Sunday school class that I teach.  I desire to complete the things that God has charged me to do from eternity past as Paul writes about in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  It is my desire to teach things from the book of Hebrews that I believe is clear, and not forget the overall theme of Hebrews which is Jesus Christ is better than anyone, to which by studying this book those who are in my class will understand that Jesus Christ is who we are studying about and that because of that that He will receive the glory.

 

8/28/2021 10:13 AM

Simon the Zealot (Matthew 10:4a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/27/2021 12:12 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                Focus:  “Simon The Zealot”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Matthew 10:4

 

            Message of the verse:  “Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.”

 

            In today’s SD we will look at Simon the Zealot, however the KJV calls him “Simon the Canaanite” which is based on an unfortunate transliteration for kananaios, which was derived from the Hebrew qanna, meaning ‘jealous’ or zealous.’  It is the equivalent of the Greek zelotes (‘zealot’), a description Luke uses of this Simon (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13), writes John MacArthur.

“4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him” (Matt. 10:4a KJV).

 

            I have mentioned in the past that I thought that it would have been very difficult for Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot to get along, and the reason for this is because who the zealots were, and perhaps Simon had been a member of them before Jesus called him to be one of his disciples.  Zealots were a radical party whose members were determined to throw off the yoke of Rome by force.  The Zealots developed during the Maccabean period, when the Jews who were under Judas Maccabaeus, revolted against the Greek conquerors.  It was during this time of Christ, another Judas which is a common Jewish name of that period, was the outstanding Zealot leader.

 

            MacArthur writes “The Zealots were one of our dominant religious parties in Judea (along with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes) but were for the most part motivated more by politics than religion.  They were primarily guerrilla fighters who made surprise attacks on Roman posts and patrols and then escaped to the hills or mountains.  Sometimes they resorted to terrorism, and the Jewish historian Josephus called them sicari (Latin, ‘daggermen’) because of their frequent assassinations.  The heroic defenders of the great Herodian fortress at Masada were Jewish Zealots led by Eleazar.  When that brave group fell to Flavius Silva in A. D. 72 after a seven-month siege, the Zealots disappeared from history.

 

            I suppose that it is fair to say that we don’t know if Simon was a part of this organization, but if he was he would be a man of intense dedication and even perhaps with violent passion.  Simon the Zealot is always mentioned right next to Judas Iscariot, and this may suggest that those men were somewhat two of a kind, whose primary concern about the Messiah would have been earthly and material rather than spiritual.  If they did have this kind of connection—and I would say that it is safe to say that many of the disciples at that time were looking for an earthly Messiah to remove them from the grip of Roman rule—then this would have been gone, as Judas became more confirmed in his rejection of Jesus and then Simon became more confirmed in his devotion to Jesus.

 

            MacArthur concludes this section by writing: “Apparently throughout their ministries, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot remained unknown even to most of the church.  But they joined the ranks of the unnamed Old Testament saints who ‘experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonments.  They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.  And all these…gained approval through their faith’ (Heb. 11:36-39).

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I believe that there truly is no shame in being a person who follows the Lord Jesus Christ and not be noticed by others.  “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3).

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Be content with doing exactly what the Lord has called me to do, the things that He planned for me to do as seen in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

 

8/27/2021 12:46 PM

 

 

Thadaeus (Judas the son of James) (Matt. 10:3c)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/26/2021 9:59 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                   Focus:  “Thaddaeus (Judas the son of James)”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 10:3c

 

            Message of the verse:  “James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;”

 

            Thaddaeus is the second apostle named listed in the third group, and based on less reliable Greek manuscripts, the Authorized text reads, “Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus.”  Then from Luke 6:16 and also Acts 1:13 we learn that he was also called Judas the son of James.  I suppose that it is likely that Judas was his original name and that Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus were descriptive names, kind of like nicknames that may have been added by family or friends.

 

            John MacArthur describes Thaddaeus’ name:  “Thaddaeus comes from the Hebrew word shad, which refers to a female breast.  The name means ‘breast child’ and was probably a common colloquialism for the youngest child in the family, the permanent ‘baby’ of the family who was the last to be nursed by his mother.”

 

            He then goes on to explain more about the name “Lebbaeus” which as mentioned is from the KJV.  “Although the name Lebbaeus is not found in what are considered the superior Greek manuscripts, and is therefore not in most modern translations, it may well have been one of this apostle’s names.  It is based on the Hebrew leb (‘heart’) and means ‘heart child,’ which suggests he was known for his generosity, love, and courage.”

 

            Let us take a look at the only time that Thaddaeus speaks in the Scriptures and it is from John 14:21-22 which happens on the night before our Lord was to go to the cross to pay for our sins.  “21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." 22  Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?’”    The highlighted portion comes from Thaddaeus, although we see the name “Judas” but then we see it is not the Judas who would betray Jesus.

 

            It looks like that Thaddaeus was only thinking of outward, visible disclosure, and so he wondered how Jesus could manifest Himself to those who love Him without also manifesting Himself to everyone else.  It was typical of most Jews of that day, and so he was looking for Christ to establish and earthly kingdom.  How, he wondered, could the Messiah sit on the throne of David and rule the entire earth without manifesting Himself to His subjects?  It could have been that Thaddaeus may have also wondered why Jesus would disclose Himself to a small group of insignificant men and not to the great religious leaders in Jerusalem, and also the powerful political leaders in Rome.

 

            We see no rebuke from Jesus, for after all I think that it is fair to say that what Thaddaeus said was something that all of the other disciples believed, including Judas and that is why he betrayed Jesus because of his great disappointment in understanding that Jesus would not take out the Romans and then rule on David’s throne from Jerusalem.  If he could not have what he wanted he decided to betray Jesus.  As mentioned Jesus did not rebuke him and this gave Him opportunity to say the following in verses 23-24 “23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”  MacArthur adds “Christ was not at that time establishing His earthly kingdom, and the disclosure He was then making was of His divinity and authority as spiritual Lord and Savior.  That disclosure can only be recognized by those who trust and love Him, and the genuineness of such trust and love is evidenced by obedience to His Word.  Manifestation is limited to reception.”   

 

            An example of what MacArthur said could be that of a radio or TV broadcast as it can have a great range, actually reaching the entire globe by the use of satellites.  However the programs that they have can only be “disclosed” to those who have proper receivers.  So the rest of the world has no awareness of the broadcast, although its electronic waves completely surround them.

 

            Henry David Thoreau at one time said “It takes two people to speak the truth, the one who says it and the one who hears it.” The ones who do not want to listen to the truth of the Gospel cannot hear it no matter how clearly it is spoken to them, but the fact remains that it is still the truth.  We as believers know that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, and yet “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:10-11).  We know from reading the gospels that there were thousands upon thousands, who listened to Jesus, and the greatest majority of them were Jews, and yet only a few had more than passing interest in who He really was or in what He had to say.  Why?  “In whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).

 

            Let us look quickly at another example.  If someone took a page out of a hymnal and through it down onto a sidewalk (Don’t think about littering here), and different people came and looked at it, or perhaps a dog would sniff it, a bum may though it was valuable, or other people may look at it and do nothing with it.  However if a believer saw it and picked it up there heart would be blessed because of the words on that page.  “The content would have been the same for all those who came in contact with it, but its meaning and value could only be understood by a person receptive to its godly truth.  Only those whose hearts are purified by love and who walk in obedience to God’s Word can perceive Christ’s truth, beauty, and glory.  Thaddaeus was such a person.”  

 

            MacArthur concludes “Tradition holds that Thaddaeus was specially blessed with the gift of healing and thorough him the Lord healed many hundreds of people in Syria.  He is said to have healed the king of that country and won him to the Lord.  The supposed conversion threw the land into such turmoil that the king’s unbelieving nephew had Thaddaeus bludgeoned to death with a club, which became the symbol of that apostle.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I suppose that in some ways and perhaps many ways I am like the apostles before Jesus was resurrected from the grave, and that is that I too have thoughts about how Jesus answers some of my prayers.  I have a perceived notion of how He will answer my prayer on a certain thing that I am praying about and then I don’t understand when He does not answer it the way I want it answered.  I must trust the Lord to answer my prayers the way that He desires them to be answered in order to bring Him glory.  An example of this could be what is happening in Afghanistan at this time as I certainly don’t know why the Lord allowed this but I must pray for the people there asking God to work out His perfect will for them as I have to believe that this was all in His plans even though I don’t know and understand those plans.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I want to trust the Lord to answer my prayer concerning the teaching of my Sunday school class this up coming week.  May He receive gorly.

 

8/26/2021 11:09 AM   

 

   

James the son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3c)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/25/2021 10:05 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  “James the son of Alphaeus”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:3c

 

            Message of the verse:  “James the son of Alphaeus”

 

            Today it is my goal to look at this man named James the son of Alphaeus, but first I want to give a short introduction to three different disciples.  The three men we will be looking at in this third group of apostles are James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, who is actually found in Matthew 10:4a.  MacArthur writes “Most of what we know of them is inferred from their names or descriptive identities or is gleaned from church tradition.  Except for one short question posed to Jesus by Thaddaeus, the Bible tells us nothing about their individual characters, personalities, abilities, or accomplishments, either during their three years of training under Jesus or during their ministry in the early church.”

 

James the Son of Alphaeus

 

            As we look at this man’s name we can see that when you add “son of Alphaeus” to his name then he can be distinguished from the other apostle James who was the son of Zebedee and also from James the half brother of Jesus.  Let us look at Mark 15:40 “40 There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome.”  We see in this verse from Mark’s gospel that he is called James the less, and in the Greek the word “less” is Mikros.  This word can also mean smaller or younger, so perhaps he was a short young man or just a short man, we don’t know.  MacArthur adds “Used in the sense of smaller, the name may have been another means of distinguishing him from James the son of Zebedee, who was clearly larger in influence and position and possibly also in physical stature.  In the sense of younger, it may have indicated his youthfulness in comparison to the other James.” Suffice to say we don’t know why he was called the “less” and so speculation is all we can do at this point, but for whatever reason he was called “the less.”

 

            MacArthur writes “Because Matthew’s father was also named Alphaeus (spelled Alpheus in Mark 2:14), James and Matthew may have been brothers.  Also, James the Less’s mother is mentioned in Mark 15:40 as being present at Christ’s crucifixion, along with other women.  She is referred to as the wife of Clopas in John 19:25.  Since Clopas was a form of Alphaeus, that further supports the possibility that James and Matthew were related.”

 

            Even though we don’t see anything about the work that James did that does not mean that he didn’t work for the Kingdom of God.  We have mentioned that all of these apostles will be ruling the 12 tribes of Israel in the future Millennial Kingdom headed up by our Lord as He rules from His father’s throne in Jerusalem.

 

            MacArthur concludes “After two thousand years, James the son of Alphaeus remains obscure.  We do not know a single word he spoke or a single thing he did.  The early church fathers claimed that he preached in Persia (modern Iran) and was crucified there as a martyr for the gospel.  If that is true, one can only wonder what would have happened to that country and to world history had those people responded favorably to the gospel.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I am thankful to learn about these men even though we don’t know a lot about them.  God knows what they did and He knows what I do for the kingdom of God, and it is my prayer that whatever He had planned for me to do in eternity past that I am doing it.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I trust that the Lord will truly bring revival to my heart and defeat the enemies that I face spiritually each day.

 

8/25/2021 10:31 AM

Matthew Tax Collector (Matt. 10:3b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/24/2021 11:08 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Matthew the Tax-Collector

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 10:3b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;”

 

                        Today we begin looking at Matthew the tax collector, and one may find it a bit unusual that the only mention of Matthew in the gospel that he wrote was in this verse and also Matthew 9:9. Unfortunately the New Testament reveals little about Matthew even though he wrote one of the great gospels found in the New Testament.

 

            We know that Matthew was a Jew and also that he worked for Rome in order to collect taxes from the Jewish people, which made him very unpopular with the Jews.  He made his money by extracting more taxes than what Rome demanded of him and this made the Jews even more angry with him. 

 

            We do see his calling by our Lord in Matthew 9:9 something we have already looked at.  “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him.”

 

            John MacArthur writes the following about tax collectors:  “They [tax collectors] were so despicable and vile that the Jewish Talmud said, ‘It is righteous to lie and deceive a tax collector.’  Tax collectors were not permitted to testify in Jewish courts, because they were notorious liars and accepted bribes as a normal part of life.  They were cut off from the rest of Jewish life and were forbidden to worship in the temple or even in a synagogue.  In Jesus’ parable, the tax collector who came to the temple to pray stood ‘some distance away’ (Luke 18:13) not only because he felt unworthy but because he was not allowed to enter.

 

            “Matthew was hardly proud of what he had been, but he seems to have cherished the description as a reminder of his own great unworthiness and of Christ’s great grace.  He saw himself as the vilest sinner, saved only by the incomparable mercy of his Lord.”

 

            In studying the book of Hebrews in order to teach our Sunday school class John MacArthur tells a story about a prostitute who came to his office because she was feed up with her life and wanted to have it changed.  She prayed to receive Christ but when MacArthur asked her to burn her book which had all the names of her “Johns” in it she refused because there was a lot of money involved.  She stated that she probably was not a true believer.  Now in the case of Matthew who was certainly making more money than this woman, when he was called by Christ he gave up everything in order to follow the Lord, not caring about the money he would be losing.

 

            When Matthew left the tax collecting business he brought some of his friends to meet with Jesus and they had a big dinner party.  The scribes and the Pharisees did not even care that he had left the business as they asked Jesus’ disciples why He was eating with that kind of a crowd.

 

            Matthew was not only a faithful man but he was humble and this can be seen by the fact that he did not want to be noticed which can be seen in the other gospel writings.  I mentioned the dinner party that he gave for Jesus in order to introduce his friends too and this is only mentioned in the other two gospels of Mark (2:15) and also in Luke (5:29).

 

            Matthew’s humility may have been born out of his great sense of sinfulness as He saw God’s grace as so superabundant that he felt unworthy to say a word.  Matthew was the silent disciple, until the Holy Spirit led him to pick up his pen and write the very first book in the New Testament which consists of twenty-eight powerful chapters on the majesty, might, and glory of the King of Kings.

 

            MacArthur concludes “God took that outcast sinner and transformed him into a man of great faith, humility, and compassion.  He turned him from a man who extorted to one who gave, from one who destroyed lives to ne who brought the way of eternal life.”

 

            Lord willing in our next SD we will begin to look at the following “James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus (Judas the son of James), and Simon the Zealot.”  This comes from Matthew 10:3c-4a.

 

8/24/2021 12:05 PM

 

           

PT-4 "Thomas" (Matt. 10:3b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/23/2021 11:16 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                       Focus:  PT-4 “Thomas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:3b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;”

 

            I have to say that when I began to look at the things about Thomas that I did not ever think that it would take this long, but because of the week-end my Spiritual Diaries were much shorter, which will also make this last SD on Thomas shorter.  I just want to go over the fact that Thomas gets a bad rap when he is called “Doubting Thomas” as all of the disciples doubted the truth of Jesus being raised from the dead, and not just Thomas.  His story in the 20^th chapter of John’s gospel kind of stands out more than the others so people have a tendency to only remember the story about Thomas.

 

            Now it was because all of the disciples had great doubts of Christ’s promise that He would be raised from the dead on the third day, Jesus allowed Thomas to remain in his doubt for another eight days.  Then when Jesus appeared again to the disciples, He singled out this very dear soul, the one who loved Him enough to die for Him and who was now utterly shattered in spirit.  Jesus said “Reach here your finger, and see My hands, and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing” (John 20:26-27).  Now we see one of the greatest confessions ever made when Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”  At this time all of his doubt was gone and he knew with full certainty that Jesus was God, that Jesus was Lord, and that Jesus was alive!  After this the Lord gently rebuked Thomas by saying “Because you have seen Me, have you believed?  Blessed are they who do not see, and yet believed” (28-29).  I think that this rebuke was not only for Thomas but for all of the other disciples that were there with Jesus because the doubts that Thomas had, though openly declared, had been no greater than theirs.

 

            We will conclude with a quotation from John MacArthur:  “If Jesus is not God and is not alive, the gospel is a foolish and futile deception, the furthest thing from any good news.  ‘If Christ has not been raised,’ Paul told the Corinthians skeptics, ‘your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins…If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied’ (1 Cor. 15:17, 19).

 

            “Tradition holds that Thomas preached as far away as India and bears his name, traces its origin to him.  He is said to have had died from a spear being thrust through him, a fitting death for the one who insisted on placing his hand in the spear wound of his Lord.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Although I do not know a whole lot about Thomas and the rest of the disciples’ lives after the church age got started it seems clear to me that they all had a ending that brought glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.  I marvel at how they all went from these unbelieving apostles to become great for the cause of Christ, something that I truly desire to do.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust that the Lord will use me for the cause of Christ in whatever way that He sees fit, in every way that He planned for me to do before the world was made.

 

8/23/2021 11:41 AM

 

           

PT-3 "Thomas" (Matt. 10:3b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/22/2021 9:43 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                       Focus:  PT-3 “Thomas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 10:3b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;”

 

            We want to explore the third text in which John tells us about Thomas, and I believe that this by far is the best known.  This happens after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  It is evident that all of Thomas’s fears had seemed to come true as Jesus had been killed, however as Jesus prophesied all the disciples were spared.  However their Master was gone, the One that had put their hopes and dreams of having the Kingdom of God restored to Israel.  MacArthur writes “For Thomas it was worse than death, which he had been perfectly willing to accept.  He felt forsaken, rejected, and probably even betrayed.  From his perspective, his worst pessimism had been vindicated.  Jesus’ promises had been empty—sincere and well meaning, no doubt, but nevertheless empty.  Because he loved Jesus so much, the feeling of rejection was all the more deep and painful.  The deepest hurt is potentiated by the greatest love.”

 

            I think after reading this quote that we can better understand the feelings that Thomas went through and so when the disciples had told him that they had seen the Lord it was like having salt being poured into his wound, and he wanted nothing to do with their fantasies about His departed Lord.  Thomas did not want to hear about Jesus being raised from the dead for his pain was too difficult for him to bear at this time.  Thomas then stated “Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).  

 

            I suppose that we have all been around depressed people and one thing we know is that being depressed naturally causes pessimism, as people who are depressed have little hope in anything, and so we see this true in the case of Thomas.

 

            When the other disciples had heard that Jesus had risen from the dead as seen in John 20:9 they two did not believe this story, for as that verse says “as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.”  The point that I am making here is that the other disciples were doubting in a similar way, and yet we don’t hear of them being called doubting like in the case of Thomas.  The two disciples seen on the road to Emmaus did not believe this story either even though that had heard it.  There are many people today that don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and just as in the same case of the apostles after they believed this truth it changed their lives.  It changed my life and I desire for it to be clear to others who read this that really don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus to believe it, to believe that He died for your sins and was in the grave for three days and then rose from the dead.  To confess the fact that you are a sinner because you were born a sinner and accept the truth that Jesus Christ died for you  and receive the risen Lord into your heart and He will change you like He changed those disciples.

 

            It is Sunday and therefore that is all that I am going to write at this time, but for those of you who read this true story of Thomas, and how the Lord changed His life because of His resurrection think about how He can do the same for you today.

 

8/22/2021 10:06 AM

PT-2 "Thomas" (Matt. 10:3b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/21/2021 7:43 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                       Focus:  PT-2 “Thomas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:3b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;”

 

            I promised to look at the next story about Thomas for this SD, and I have to say that it is a rather short one, but since this is the weekend my Spiritual Diaries are always shorter any way.  I have decided to quote this short portion from MacArthur’s commentary as he seems to add some things to this familiar story that I have not thought about before, which is not unusual any way, as that is why I like to use MacArthur’s commentaries to aid me in the study of God’s Word.

 

            “In the upper room following the Last Supper, Jesus urged the disciples not to be troubled in heart and assured them that He was going to prepare a heavenly place for them and would come again and receive them to Himself, in order that they might forever be with Him.  He then said, ‘And you know the way where I am going’ (John 14:1-4).  Puzzled at this, Thomas asked, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?’ (v. 5).

 

            “Only a few days earlier Thomas had declared his determination to die with Christ if necessary.  His devotion to Christ was unqualified, but like the other disciples he had almost no understand of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, for which his Master had been preparing him for three years.  Thomas had little comprehension of what Jesus had just said, apparently assuming Jesus was only talking about a long journey to a distant country.  He was bewildered, saddened, and anxious.  Again the disciple’s pessimism and also his love are revealed.  His pessimism made him fear that he might somehow be permanently separated from his Lord, and his love for his Lord made that fear unbearable.  Understanding Thomas’s heart as well as his words, Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ (v. 6).  ‘If you know Me,’ Jesus was saying, ‘you know the way.  And if you are in Me, you are in the way.  Your only concern is to be with Me, and I will take you wherever I go.’”

 

8/21/2021 7:59 AM

 

           

PT-1 "Thomas" (Matt. 10:3b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/20/2021 10:23 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                       Focus:  PT-1 “Thomas”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 10:3b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Thomas and Matthew the tax-gatherer;”

 

            In Today’s SD we begin to look at the Apostle Thomas and as in the other lists of the apostles, Thomas and Matthew are in the second group of four groups, however the order of the names varies in how they are listed in the different synoptic gospels along with the book of Acts as seen in Mark 3:18; Luke and Acts 1:13.  

 

            What is the first thing that a person normally things about when they think of Thomas?  Doubting Thomas comes to mind immediately when one thinks of the Apostle Thomas.  I remember when I was growing up we had a newspaper that came out something like three days a week, and if I remember correctly my mom used to write a column in it about events that took place in our very small village.  She got ten cents an inch of copy.  Anyhow there was a man who wrote a column and he entitled it “Doubting Thomas.”  I suppose that when a person is a skeptic he is often called “doubting Thomas.”  

 

            We have been looking at a list of the apostles who had little said about them in these synoptic gospels and the only way we found something about them is seen in the gospel of John, and Thomas is one of those apostles whose name is found in the synoptic gospels and Acts in the lists and in John’s gospel we find out things about him.  The first incident we want to look at is found in the 11^th chapter of John, the very famous chapter that speaks of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been dead for four days.  We pick up the story in verse fifteen where Jesus says to His disciples “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.”  This miracle happens right near the end of Jesus’ ministry and the twelve have seen many miracles done by Jesus by this time including dead people coming back to life as Jesus raised them from the dead and yet they were still lacking in faith.  Now Jesus had already decided to go back to Judea even though the last time He was there the Jews tried to kill Him.  The place where Lazarus, along with his sisters Mary and Martha lived was in Bethany which was a suburb of Jerusalem, so they would be very near Jerusalem.  Now Thomas comes into the picture in verse 16 “Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.’”  This is a very interesting verse to try and understand but we will try and think through what was in the mind of Thomas here and I don’t believe that doubting had anything to do with it.  Thomas, like the others knew the risks in going back to Judea and so it seems that he is thinking that if we go back there and die we will all die together.  MacArthur writes “He was obviously pessimistic about the outcome of the trip, but the pessimism makes his act all the more courageous. As a pessimist, he expected the worst possible consequences; yet he was willing to go.  An optimist would have needed less courage, because he would have expected less danger.  Thomas was willing to pay the ultimate price for the sake of the Lord. 

 

            “Such unreserved willingness to die for Christ was hardly the mark of a doubter.  Thomas was willing to die for Christ because he totally believed in Him.  Thomas was perhaps equaled only by John in his utter and unwavering devotion to Jesus.  He had such an intense love for the Lord that he could not endure existence without Him.  If Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem and certain death, so was Thomas, because the alternative of living without Him was unthinkable.”

 

            I want to conclude this SD with another quotation from Herbert Lockyer who commented “Like those brave knights in attendance upon the blind King John Bohemia who rode into the battle of Crecy with their bridles intertwined with that of their master, resolved to share his fate, whatever it might be…so Thomas, come life, come death, was resolved not to forsake his Lord, seeing he was bound to Him by a deep and enthusiastic love’ (All the Apostles of the Bible).”

 

8/20/2021 10:56 AM