SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/31/2022 10:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Herod’s Reaction”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 14:1-2
Message
of the verses: “1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the news about
Jesus, 2 and said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist; he has risen
from the dead; and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’”
At the
time Herod the tetrarch heard the news about Jesus, Herod the Great hand long
since been dead and this Herod had been ruling for 32 years according to what
John MacArthur states in his commentary.
Herod kind of split up living in two different places, and the first was
at his palace in Tiberias which was on the southwest shore of the Sea of
Galilee. The other place was at the
massive fortress palace that his father had built at Machaerus, which was about
seven miles east of the northern tip of the Dead Sea.
We know
that the majority of Jesus’ ministry was in Galilee, but there is no mention of
Him going through or ministering at Tiberias.
Tiberias was in walking distance of Capernaum, Nazareth, Cana, and many
other places that Jesus went, but there is no evidence of Him going to
Tiberias. MacArthur writes “The Lord may
have avoided Tiberias in order not to prematurely arouse Herod’s
attention. And it may have been for that
reason, along with the pagan king’s general disdain for the Jews and his
preoccupation with luxurious living, that Herod seemed to be so long in hearing
the news about Jesus.”
We can get
a look at the truth that Herod was frightened about things when we read about
after he had heard about Jesus that it seems that the first thing that came
into his frightened head was that this was John the Baptist raised from the
dead in order to seek revenge.
MacArthur
writes “We learn from Luke that this notion did not originate with Herod but
that he had ‘heard of all that was happening; and he was greatly perplexed,
because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, and by some that
Elijah had appeared, and by others, that one of the prophets of old had risen
again’ (Luke 9:7-8; cf. Matt. 16:14).
Herod confessed, ‘I myself had John beheaded’; and out of morbid
curiosity ‘he kept trying to see Him’ (Luke 9:9). In his guilt-ridden mind he had decided that
this Jesus was none other than John the Baptist…risen from the dead.
“The angel
of the Lord told John’s father, Zacharias, that his son would ‘go as a
forerunner before [Jesus] in the spirit and power of Elijah’ (Luke 1:17). Elijah had been endowed with great miraculous
powers, and it may be that John the Baptist performed miracles of which we are
not told. In any case, Herod obviously
believed John had such gifts and was convinced that the miraculous powers that
were at work in Jesus proved He was John returned from the dead.”
I want to
move on to a different subject for a moment and that is there is something that
I have been following called “Pray938 Give a month-Change the world.” “A Matthew 938 prayer initiative is a thirdly
days of prayer asking God to send gospel workers into His harvest.” In order to get a copy of this thirty day
prayer booklet one can go to BMM.org and you will be able to download this onto
your phone or read it each day from that website.
There is
another thing that has to do with Matthew 9:38 and that is a podcast that just
began sometime in April of this year.
You can go to where you get your podcasts and search for “TheSend938
Podcast.” Stephen Anderson, the son of
Dr. Gary Anderson who was the longest president of Baptist Mid Missions which
is now 102 years old is the person talking to different people, including his
father (once a month) on these podcasts.
I can assure you that these are worth listening to, as much is talked
about the great history of BMM and then the theme of revival is also spoken of.
5/31/2022 10:51 AM
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