SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/17/2021 10:19 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Provision”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 10:19-20
Message of the verses: “19 “But when they
deliver you up, do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it
shall be given you in that hour what you are to speak. 20 “For it is not you
who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”
We have been talking about believers who will be
maligned, persecuted, arrested, and beaten is traumatic, and while that was
being experienced, one must know that it will be extremely difficult not to
become anxious. When a person is charged
with wrong doing it is only natural that they want to speak out in their own
defense, to convince their accusers of their innocence.
We
read what Paul told the Philippian believers in 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known to God.” However
we are looking at special circumstances of being brought before a religious or
a civil court, we have the additional promise that “it shall be given [us] in
that hour what [we] are to speak.” The
ones who suffer for Christ will be defended by Christ, and that has to be a comforting
thought.
It
is true that many of the most memorable and powerful testimonies of the great
martyrs were uttered just before they were put to death. God is the One who gave them a special
presence of mind and also clarity of thought to present a testimony more
powerful than they would otherwise have been able to give.
Now
for the apostles, that promise included the added provision of divine
inspiration. When Paul, for example, gave
testimony while he was on trial, he spoke the Word of God. Jesus announced “For it is not you who speak,
but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”
The following quotation comes from John MacArthur’s
commentary on Matthew:
“The
well-known commentator R. C. H. Lenske writes,
‘Without previous thinking,
planning, imagining, at the time of their trials in court, the Apostles will
receive directly from God just what to utter.
It will come into their minds just as it is needed, and thus they will
utter it aloud…The Apostles, indeed, make utterance, and yet they do not, for
their act is due to the Holy Spirit, so that most properly he is the one who
does his uttering. Everything that is
mechanical, magical, unpsychological is shut out…The Apostles will not be like the demoniacs, their
organs of speech and their very wills being violated by a demon. Absolutely the contrary: mind, heart, will operate freely, consciously,
in joyful, trustful dependence on the Spirit’s giving, who enables them to find
just what to say and how to say it down to the last word, with no mistake or
even a wrong word due to faulty memory or disturbed emotions occurring. This,
of course, is Inspiration, Verbal inspiration.’
(The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1964] 402).”
10/17/2021 10:42 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment