SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/26/2021 9:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Unfulfilled Expectations”
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?’”
The
following from Matthew 3:1-12 is what John the Baptist taught about what the
Messiah would do: “11 "As for me, I
baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier
than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and fire. 12 "His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will
thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the
barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’” Now as we look at these two verses we can
understand a bit as to why John may have doubted because of his unfulfilled expectations
as he had never seen any of this done by the Lord. John knew that what he was preaching was
true, and he knew that Jesus was the one about whom he preached, yet as stated
he never saw Jesus do any of these things that the Holy Spirit had led him to preach
about concerning the work of the Messiah.
John, like many others in this day and throughout the church have not
seen what they expected out of the Messiah.
John was looking for judgment , judgment on the Romans who held Israel
in their hands in a very ungodly way. In
our country today we have what some have described as the worst leader ever,
and this man borders on being a commie, and many would like to see him taken
out of office, but in my mind there are two reasons that he is there. First our country, a country that has had
great benefits because of our Christian background has turned our faces from
the Lord. Second, I have studied
prophecy for many, many years and I have yet to see the United States of
America in any prominent or for that matter any role in the end times. I have said since I became a believer and
studied prophecy that our country had to fall from a world power, and this man
who is being led by people who want this to happen is doing a good job to
remove our country from any power that we have experienced for a long
time. They are looking for a one-world
government and that is what the Bible says will come, headed up by what the
Bible calls the Antichrist.
Now
as John viewed what our Lord was doing it was not judgment, but the gathering
together of twelve men who were nondescript followers and began teaching them
in the same manner as many other rabbis had done for centuries before Him. Although Jesus demonstrated great miracle works
as far as judgment that never happened.
But wait, all the things that John wrote about will someday happen, and
as far as judgment Jesus while on the cross judged sin by taking that sin upon
Himself in order to pay for it so that all who call upon His name will have
their sins paid for. The Bible teaches
that it seems like two different Messiah’s would be coming, and yet it really
teaches One will come at two different time periods and the second coming of
Messiah will be a time of great judgment as He comes at the end of the greatest
war every fought, and when He returns judgment will be swift and sure.
John
MacArthur writes “It has always been hard for believers to understand why God
allows so many of His children to suffer and allows so many wicked, ungodly
people to prosper. It was doubly hard
for John the Baptist. For one thing, he
had a deep devotion to righteousness and was called by God to preach repentance
and judgment. More than that, he was
called to proclaim the coming of “the Expected One” who would execute that
judgment—which he thought would begin shortly, if not immediately after the
Messiah appeared on the scene.
“Christians
today sometimes get excited about the Lord’s imminent return; but when many
years pass and He does not come, their hope, along with their dedication, often
fades. They do not stop excepting Him to
return some day, but they stop thinking about it and hoping for it as much as
they once did. Some scoffers will even
say, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?
For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from
the beginning of creation’ (2 Pet. 3:4).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: In making a habit of putting on the Spiritual
armor and a part of this is “the helmet of the hope of salvation” and the hope
is a noun and not a verb as I expect the Lord to return, and therefore want to
live like He is returning today.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that
the Lord will return very soon to take His bride, the church, home to be with
Him forever.
11/26/2021 10:05 AM
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