SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/9/2022 9:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Peril”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:6-7
Message of the verses: “6 but whoever causes
one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it is better for him
that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the
depth of the sea.
7 “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is
inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the
stumbling block comes!”
In earlier SD’s we have talked about the “religious”
system that was in place when Jesus was on the earth, and it was almost a cult
like system, a works system where the leaders of it were causing those who were
following their practices to sin because of the system itself. Jesus charged the Jewish leaders not only
with being hypocritical and sinful themselves but with leading others into sin
through their man-made traditions. An
example of this would be adultery in the sense of having an extramarital
affair, many of them became adulterers themselves and promoted adultery by
others affair, many of them became adulterers themselves and promoted adultery
by others through their tradition of permitting a husband to divorce his wife
without legitimate cause. Jesus said
that “whoever divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity makes her
commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”
(Matthew 5:32). I once read or heard a
sermon on the Muslim religion where a man wanted to have sexual relations with
a prostate would have to have a marriage with her and then when the visit was
over they would get a divorce. The point
is that in both cases, the Jews and the Muslims is was something they were
doing to get around the laws that were in place. It has to be a heart thing and not mechanically
trying to get around the law in the way they did. Jesus also said that if a man looks at a
woman to lust upon her that he has already committed adultery with that woman
in their heart, and I suppose that this can happen to women too.
Let me give you a verse that speaks
of one of the reasons that God gave His Law:
Ro 5:20 The Law came in so that the transgression would
increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Paul is saying that one of the reasons for
the Law was so that the transgression would increase, and when you think about
this perhaps it does not make sense to you at first. There has only been one Person who has kept
the Law perfectly, and that of course was Jesus Christ. He kept the Law perfectly so that we don’t
have to, and we don’t keep it perfectly because we are not able to keep it
perfectly so then in order to receive eternal life we have to realize this
truth and then trust the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation who has kept it
perfectly for all those who belong to Him.
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that
we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Let us move on and talk about the
church at Pergamum, a church that is seen in the second chapter of
Revelation. This church was indicted by
the Lord because it tolerated members who held “teaching of Balaam, who kept
teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat
things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality” (Rev 2:14). In Revelation 2:20 we read of a similar sin
that came from the church at Thyatira “‘But I have this against you,
that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she
teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of
immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.”
The bottom line is that both churches tolerated the teaching of false
doctrine and the practice of wicked standards of living, and by doing this they
caused people to stumble into sin.
A long time ago I met a man who had
grown up in Europe during the Second World War, as he was a young boy when this
was going on. There are many stories I
could tell about Paul but one that kind of goes along with what we are looking
at happened after he came to the United States and was attending a church where
the deacons in that church were not living for the Lord and were probably not
even true believers. Paul and some other
believers began to pray for the church and for a number of months the deacons
began to die, so I guess it seems that the Lord was answering their prayers in
getting that church where He wanted it to be.
I don’t remember how many of the deacons who died but I think the number
six stands out in my mind. God has ways
to cleanse a church if that is what the people in the church want to
happen.
We will continue to talk about how
people can cause other people to sin and will begin with a story about a husband
causing his wife to sin in our next SD.
12/9/2022 10:31
AM
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