SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/15/2021 12:34 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “Persecution by Government”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 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.”
What I am about to write can be seen in our country
at this present time, and that is when God’s kingdom is thriving, Satan causes
his people to react against it in proportion to its success. When I listened to the sermon that goes along
with this section by John MacArthur, which was spoken on June 28, 1981 which
was a time when our nation was in better shape spiritually than it is now, and
many people believed that because we live in such a great country that nothing
like what is happening today would ever happen.
Satan lives on forever, and so he has time to slowly put into practices
things that go against his enemy, the church of Jesus Christ. When I became a believer in 1974, which happened
by listening to tapes on how the world was going to end, I knew pretty much that
the United States would eventually fall, didn’t and still now don’t know how,
but knew it had to happen because we are not mentioned in end times
prophecy. Russia is there and Europe is
there along with many countries in the Middle East and even Africa, but we are
not there and so It is something that has to happen. My wish on how our country would fall was
that the Rapture of the church would occur and because of so many believers who
were in important parts of our country to keep it going that it would
fall. The leaders in our country now at
this time are wanting to be a part of a
one world government that the Bible says will come about, and I don’t
believe that we are far from that from happening. The Bible also talks about a moneyless
society, which has certainly been talked about because of the pandemic we are
now in. Things seem to me are set up,
and all we are waiting for is the blowing of the trumpet for the rapture to
happen. However as believers we are to
be diligent in what we do for the cause
of Christ and not be like the Thessalonians who quit their jobs and went to the
hills awaiting the return of the Lord.
Saul
of Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul knew about how the government persecuted
true believers as he was a big part of it before the Lord saved him as seen in
the earlier chapters in Acts. Saul had
not seen Jesus before his conversion seen in the 9th chapter of
Acts, but he was persecuting believers because they belonged to Jesus Christ
and was using government as an aid in doing this.
John
MacArthur writes “Every antagonistic and injurious unbeliever, no matter how
unconsciously, persecutes Christ through His people. Jesus declared unequivocally that ‘he who is
not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters’ (Matt.
12:30).
“The
phrase as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles is not easy to
interpret. It could mean that persecuted
believers are a living rebuke against their persecutors, a testimony against them
and all the unbelieving Gentiles (pagans).
Others take it to mean a testimony to Christ that persecuted believers
make as His witnesses. The two
interpretations are not incompatible, and both seem to be legitimate.
“In
either case, governments at various levels and to various degrees have been
involved in persecution of believers through the history of the church. Only a few years after Pentecost, Herod
Agrippa I ‘laid hands on some who belonged to the church, in order to mistreat
them. And he had James the brother of
John put to death with a sword. And when
he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also’ (Acts
12:1-3). Herod’s motivation, even in
pleasing the Jews, was not religious but political and personal.”
Looks
like we will have one more SD to do in this section, and Lord willing we will
do that tomorrow.
10/15/2021 1:02 PM
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