SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/11/2022 11:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Instruction”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 12:3-8
Message of the verses: “3 But He said to
them, "Have you not read what David did, when he became hungry, he and his
companions; 4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated
bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the
priests alone? 5 “Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the
priests in the temple break the Sabbath, and are innocent? 6 “But I say to you,
that something greater than the temple is here. 7 “But if you had known what
this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have
condemned the innocent. 8 “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’”
I want to tell you what is going on in this section
as the SD for today will only be an introduction to these verses and then we
will look more thoroughly at them as we look at three sub-sections. “The Sabbath Does Not Restrict Deeds of
Necessity”; The Sabbath Does Not Restrict Service to God”; and “The Sabbath
Does not Restrict Acts of Mercy.”
We
will not proceed with this rather short introduction to these verses.
As
we look at the following quote from verse three “Have you not read what David
did…?” we can conclude that this had to be an embarrassment to the Pharisees
who were confronting Jesus and His disciples about breaking their Sabbath
traditions. Why do I say this? Well because these men along with the scribes
were suppose to know just about everything about the Old Testament as any
humans alive at this time and so to ask them this question was something that I
am sure that brought anger to them.
Jesus
here is responding to the Pharisees’ false charge as Jesus instructed them
about God’s purposes for the Sabbath; particularly about three things that it
was not designed to do.
John
MacArthur writes “Like the other nine Commandments, the one to observe the
Sabbath was given to promote love toward God and love toward one’s fellow man. The first three pertain to showing love of
God through reverence, faithfulness, and holiness. The other seven pertain to love of other
people through personal purity, unselfishness, truthfulness, and contentment
and through respect for their possessions, rights, and well-being.
“The
scribes and Pharisees, however, knew nothing of love—for God or for men. They were legalistic functionaries, trapped
in their own system of endless, futile traditions. Instead of fulfilling the law by loving their
neighbors as themselves (Lev. 19:18; cf. Rom 13:8-10), they attempted to
fulfill it through loveless and lifeless traditions.”
As
we continue with these next three sub-points we will learn that Jesus reaffirms
that the Sabbath was given for God’s glory and for man’s welfare, and this
makes perfect sense to what these Ten Commandments really meant. They were never intended to restrict the
expression of love through deeds of necessity, service to God, or acts of mercy
as these are what we will be looking at over the next few days, Lord willing.
1/11/2022 12:00 PM
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