SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/4/2021 12:45 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Rejection
of Those Who Are Contemptuous”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
10:13b-15
Message of the verses: “but if it is not
worthy, let your greeting of peace return to you. 14 "And whoever
does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that
city, shake off the dust of your feet. 15 "Truly I say to you, it will be
more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of
judgment, than for that city.”
When
the apostles went into a city or a house in a city and found the people
contemptuous they were told that they should shade off the dust of the city
from their feet as they left the city or the house. In the fourth chapter of John’s gospel we see
that Jesus said He must go through Samaria which was a place that the Jews
would not go through because the Samaritans were a mixed race of people in the
eyes of the Jews as they were part Jewish and part Gentile. The habit of Jesus day was to go around
Samaria and if you though you got any of their “dirt” on your sandals then you
must shake it off and not bring it into Israel.
In doing this act the apostles were saying that they did not want to
even take dirt from the city of house because of the rejection that they had
for the gospel. The apostles by doing
this were saying that this town or house was like Gentiles. MacArthur writes “When the leaders of the
synagogue in Pisidia of Antioch drove Paul and Barnabas out of their district,
the two men ‘shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went
to Iconium’ (Acts 13:51). Of the
unbelieving Jews there, Paul had declared, ‘It was necessary that the word of
God should be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it, and judge yourselves
unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles’ (v. 46; cf.
Matt. 7:6).”
I
think in order to best understand some issues that some may have with what we
are looking at I want to quote another paragraph from MacArthur’s
commentary. “It is not that we are to
turn away from those who reject the gospel at first hearing or even after
several hearings. Had that practice been
followed, many believers would not be in the kingdom today. Through Paul, the Lord Himself entreated unbelieving
Corinthians to ‘be reconciled to God’ (2 Cor. 5:20). Were not God marvelously patient and
long-suffering with fallen mankind, He would have destroyed the world long
ago. He is infinitely patience with
sinners, Peter tells us, ‘not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. Jesus was not speaking of those who are slow
to understand or believe but o fhose who, after hearing a clear testimony of
the gospel and seeing dramatic and irrefutable signs of confirmation, continue
to resist and oppose it. When a person’s
mind is firmly set against God, we should turn our efforts to others.”
We
now want to look at Hebrews 6:5-6 with these beginning words When people “have tasted
the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have
fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they
again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.” Jesus warns of such people “Truly I say to
you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of
Judgment, than for that city.” We
remember that God utterly destroyed those two ancient cities with brimstone and
with fire because of their wickedness as
seen in Genesis 19:24. If one looks for
traces of those cities today they will not find any. Some suspect that they could be buried under
the “Dead Sea.” Men and women who are
contemptuous of the gracious, saving gospel of Jesus Christ face an even worse
fate “in the day of judgment” (cf. Matt. 24:50-51; 25:14-46; 2 Thess. 1:5-10).
Lord
willing in our next SD we will begin to look at “Sheep Among Wolves” which will
be an interesting portion of Scripture to look at. (Matthew 10:16-23).
10/4/2021 1:13 PM
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