SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/26/2022 9:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-6 “The
Purpose: To Reveal and to Conceal”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
13:10-17
Message of the verses: “10 And the
disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in
parables?" 11 And He answered and said to them, "To you it has been granted to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. 12 “For
whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he shall have an abundance;
but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. 13
“Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see,
and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 “And in their
case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘You will keep on hearing, but
will not understand; and you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; 15 for
the heart of this people has become dull, and with their ears they scarcely
hear, and they have closed their eyes unless they \should see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I
should heal them.’ 16 “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and
your ears, because they hear. 17 "For truly I say to you, that many
prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it;
and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.’”
We want to begin this SD by talking about the words “Whoever
has” as seen in verse 12. This refers to
those who believe those who have sovereignly given the gift of eternal life,
those who have received Jesus Christ as they put their trust in Him. These are the ones who are the true citizens
of the kingdom because they have received the King. And whoever accepts salvation from God, to
him shall more be given. In John 1:9 we
read “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every
man.” Believers will receive more light
as they walk with their Lord until he shall have an abundance.”
However
the fate of unbelievers is just the opposite of that of believers, and it is
because of their unbelief, he does not have salvation, and so even what light
of God’s truth he has shall be taken away from him. MacArthur writes “Many thousands of people heard
Jesus teach and saw Him perform miraculous signs as evidence of His divine
messiahship, but most of them did not recognize Him as Lord or receive Him as
Savior. They were exposed to God
incarnate, and yet they rejected Him—either by direct opposition or by
indifferent neglect. They said no to the
King, and because they refused to receive the divine light that shined on them,
they drifted deeper and deeper into spiritual darkness.”
Now
as we think of the result of these Jewish people rejecting God incarnate, the
Lord Jesus Christ there have been some very difficult things that have happened
to them beginning in 70 A. D. when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed and
several million Jews were killed. Those
who were left offered themselves as slaves but there were not buyers for them
as the slave market had too many slaves.
De 28:68 “The LORD
will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, ‘You
will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your
enemies as male and female slaves,
but there will be no buyer." Moses prophesied about this many, many, hundreds
of years before it happened. To this
day, there are no people on earth who are more religiously disoriented than
Jews. The Jews were called God’s people,
and were given His promises, His covenants, His laws, and His immeasurable
blessings. They were even sent God’s Son
who was born into a Jewish family, and He taught them, He healed them, gave
them comfort, redemption if they would accept it, and yet the turned it
down. They did not want this Man to rule
over them, and even today when the Lord brought them back into their own land
which they have not possessed since 586 B.C. they still will not come to their
Messiah and even persecute believers in their land. Judaism ended when their Messiah was
crucified and the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom as Jesus
died on the cross for them.
MacArthur
concludes this rather long section by writing “All men are either progressing
or regressing spiritually. No person
remains static in his relationship to God.
The longer a person knows and is faithful to Christ, the more his Lord
is faithful to reveal His truth and power.
The longer a person rejects the knowledge of God he has, whether much or
little, the less of God’s truth he will understand. Willful human rejection leads to divine
judicial rejection. When a man says no
to God, God says no to that person. God
confirms men in their stubbornness, and binds them with their own chains of
unbelief.”
Lord
willing we will continue to look more closely at verses 13-15 in our next SD
under the title of “To Conceal.”
3/26/2022 9:39 AM
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