SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/14/2021 10:12 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1
“Persecution by Government”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
10:18
Message of the verse: “18 and you shall
even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them
and to the Gentiles.”
When we look back at the Roman world which was what
was in power at the time of Christ and then of the apostles afterwards we find
that Governors were the Roman procurators, people like Pilate, Felix, and
Festus, however represent any governmental office or body below the national
level. Next we look at “Kings” such as
the two Agrippas, Herod Antipas, and other monarchs mentioned in the New Testament
who represent heads of state.
Now
in this section our Lord explains why the wolves are so vicious with the Lord’s
sheep. It is not because of the sheep
themselves but because of their Shepherd, something we have mentioned in an
earlier SD. Jesus said “it is for my
sake” that His disciples would suffer abuse and persecution. The world hates
Christians because the world hates their Lord, Jesus Christ. Every person who identifies himself with
Christ through salvation becomes a potential target of Satan and his evil forces,
including evil men. So it is Christ and
not just Christians themselves that the world opposes is seen in that the more
Christ is manifest in us, the more we will be attacked. So it happens when we do not manifest Christ,
we do not incite the world’s wrath. The
Christian who mimics the world, or just simply keeps his faith to himself, is
really in little danger from the world, because he manifests little of his Lord’s
nature. The world attacks us only when
it sees Christ in us.
Jesus
affirmed such reality when He said the following from the Gospel of John
15:18-21,
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it
has hated Me before it hated you. 19 “If you were of the world, the world
would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you. 20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A
slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also
persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 “But all
these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent
Me.”
We will conclude this SD with a quotation from John
MacArthur’s commentary on the book of Matthew:
“The stripes, lacerations, bruises, and scars on Paul’s body were the ‘brandmarks
of Jesus’ (Gal. 6:17). They were made on
his body, but they were intended for the Lord.
Paul’s persecutors did not despise him because of who he was but because
Christ worked so powerfully through him.
When they eventually took his life, it was because his life was Christ’s
life. Because the church is Christ’s
body, it is faithful believers in the church who, like Paul, fill up ‘Christ’s
afflictions’ (Col. 1:24). It is
sufferings, being conformed to His death’ (Phil. 3:10). ‘If you are reviled for the name of Christ,
you are blessed,’ Peter says, ‘because the Spirit of glory and of God rests
upon you’ (1 Pet. 4:14). It is the ‘Spirit
of glory and of God’ in the believer’s life that the world hates and seeks to
destroy.”
10/14/2021 10:39 AM
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