SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/25/2021 9:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Worldly Influence”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
11:2-3
Message of the verses: “2 Now when John,
while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his
disciples 3 and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look
for someone else?’”
We continue to look at doubt coming from worldly
influence and want to begin by talking about how it was that many of the Jewish
people missed the fact that Jesus was truly their Messiah. We have mentioned that the Jewish people,
including the disciples of Jesus had a different idea of what the Messiah
should be doing when He came and Jesus did not fit into that mold. I think the biggest problem was that they did
not study their Bibles, for if they did they would have read passages like
Isaiah 52-23, and also Psalm 22 to mention a couple that spoke about the suffering
Servant, and Psalm 22 shows us more about crucifixion than any other passage in
the Word of God.
MacArthur
writes “People today, including some believes, are confused and perplexed about
the plan of God for the same reason.
Their minds are so full of the ideas of people around them that they
fail to understand God’s plan even when they read it in Scripture. We continually hear people ask, ‘If Christ
loves everybody so much, why do children die and people starve and get diseased
and become disabled? If God is a God of
justice, why is there so much corruption and injustice in the world? Why do so many good people have it so bad and
so many bad people have it so good? If
God is so loving and merciful, why does He send people to Hell? If God is so powerful and false religions are
so evil, why doesn’t He just wipe out those false systems?’ Because the Lord does not fit their
preconceived ideas of what He should be like, people are perplexed, often
indignant, and sometimes even blasphemous.”
Perhaps
this verse will help answer the question as to why the world does not know God
or understand His nature or even His plan.
“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for
they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).
Here is the definition of the Greek word that is translated “appraised” “anakrino 1)
examine or judge
1a) to investigate, examine, enquire
into, scrutinise, sift, question
1a1) specifically in a forensic sense of
a judge to hold an investigation
1a2) to interrogate, examine the accused
or witnesses
1b) to judge of, estimate, determine
(the excellence or defects of any person or thing
MacArthur
adds “The Jews who would not believe Jesus’ claim to messiahship even when He
told them plainly of it did so because they did not belong to Him. ‘You do not believe,’ Jesus said, ‘because
you are not of My sheep’ (John 10:26).”
We
conclude by talking about the unbelieving Pharisees, the ones who asked Jesus about
“when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of
God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it
is!” or “There it is!” For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst’” (Luke
17:20-21). So we see that ignorance and
unbelief always blind the eyes of men to the realities of the kingdom that are
all around us.”
Happy Thanksgiving to all who read this!
11/25/2021 10:21 AM
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