SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/8/2021 9:47 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “John’s Powerful Culmination”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 11:12-15
Message of the verses: “12 “And from the
days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and
violent men take it by force. 13 “For all the prophets and the Law prophesied
until John. 14 “And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who
was to come. 15 “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
I was mistaken in that there is one more paragraph
to quote about what MacArthur has to say about the interpretations on “suffers
violence comes.” “Although both
interpretations are possible and true, the second seems preferable in the
context. Jesus had already taught that
the few who enter the kingdom do so by first finding and then entering the
narrow gate and walking the narrow way (Matt. 7:13-14). He also said that citizenship in His kingdom
requires denying self, taking up one’s cross, and following Him (Matt. 16:24;
cf. 10:38). Following the Lord demands
earnest endeavor, untiring energy, and the utmost exertion. To be a Christian is to swim against the flow
of the world, to go against its grain, because the adversary—Satan, his demons,
and the world system—are extremely powerful.
Those who enter the kingdom of grace through faith in Christ do so with
great effort through the sovereign power of the convicting and converting Holy
Spirit.” (To see the first two
interpretations see yesterday’s SD.)
Here
is another remarkable thing about John the Baptist and that according to verse
13 where we read “For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John,” and
this shows that all of God’s previous revelation culminated in John. This means that everything from Genesis to
Malachi to John pointed to and moved toward Christ, the Messiah. Their common theme—sometimes explicit and
sometimes implicit—was, “The Messiah is coming!”
Jesus
then continued ““And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who
was to come.” MacArthur writes “Through
the last words of the last prophet, God had said, ‘Behold, I am going to send
you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the
Lord. And he will restore the hearts of
the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers,
lest I come and smite the land with a curse’ (Mal. 4:5-6).
“The
man would not be a reincarnated Elijah but another prophet much like
Elijah. That Malachi’s prophecy referred
to John the Baptist and not to a literally returned Elijah is made clear by the
angel’s message to Zechariah about John:
‘It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power
of Elijah’ (Luke 1:17); and John himself denied that he was actually Elijah
(John 1:21). John was like Elijah—internally in ‘spirit and
power’ and externally in rugged independence and nonconformity.”
Here
is the point that I believe that Jesus is making here and that is if the Jews
received John’s message as God’s message, and then received the Messiah that he
proclaimed, then he would indeed be the Elijah spoken of by Malachi. However if they refused the King and His
kingdom, another Elijah-like prophet would be sent in the future. Speaking about in the future this Elijah has
not yet come, but I believe that he is one of the two men that John’s speaks of
in Revelation chapter eleven. We read of
two witnesses in Revelation 11:1-19 and when I was putting SD’s for the book of
Revelation I had mentioned that it is believed that these two witnesses were
Moses and Elijah and the miracles that they did described in that section were
similar to what these two men did while on earth, and another thing is that
neither of these men really finished their ministry before going to heaven.
The
Jews did not accept the kingdom offer, killed both John and then Jesus and so
John would not be counted as Elijah. As
mentioned another Elijah will come as seen in Rev. 11:1-19.
Jesus
then gives a final warning “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” John is
indeed the forerunner of the Messiah,’ is what Jesus was saying, “and I am
indeed the Messiah, as John has testified to you. I am the King, and I am offering you the
kingdom—individually as you turn to Me in personal faith and nationally if you
come to Me as God’s chosen nation.”
MacArthur
concludes: “John was the greatest man to
live before Christ, but the highest greatness God offers is not like John’s. John was a unique man and greatly used by God
in the redemptive scheme before the new covenant. But his greatness pales, Jesus says, beside
those who enter His spiritual kingdom through trust in Him as Lord and Savior
in the new covenant. True greatness is
not being like John the Baptist but being like Christ. This is the ‘one pearl of great value’ for
which it is worth sacrificing everything else (Matt. 13:46).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Being reminded that everything from Genesis
to Malachi to John pointed to and moved toward Christ, the Messiah. Their common theme—sometimes explicit and
sometimes implicit—was, ‘The Messiah is coming!
My Steps of Faith for Today: I am
trusting the Lord to be with the surgeons who will be operating on a friend of
mine in about an hour to take care of a wound that he has to have repaired that
has not healed. Then tomorrow my
grandson is being operated on to repair a damaged knee, so I pray that his
surgeon will be able to take care of that problem.
12/8/2021 10:25 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment