PT-4 "The Plan of His Suffering" (Matt. 20:17-18a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/17/2023 9:43 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                          Focus:  PT-4 “The Plan of His Suffering”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Matthew 20:17-18a

 

            Message of the verses:  “17 As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He said to them, 18 "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem;”

 

            I want to begin with a quotation from John MacArthur as he begins to talk about some OT passages which speak of the Messiah:  “Through Moses, God had predicted that none of the Messiah’s bones would be broken (Ex. 12:46).  Through the psalmists, He predicted that, on the cross, the Messiah would be pierced (22:16), that lots would be cast for His garments (22:18), that He would be given vinegar to drink (69:21), that He would cry out in pain (22:1), that He would rise from the dead (16:10), and that He would ascend into heaven (101:1).  Zechariah predicted the Messiah’s entering Jerusalem on a colt (Zech. 9:9), His betrayal for 30 pieces of silver (11:12), His desertion by His friends (13:7), and His being pierced (12:10).

 

            “The whole sweep and flow of the Old Testament in its types and symbols demanded that the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, die for the sins of a world that could never itself atone for those sins.  The death of Christ has been called the scarlet thread of Scripture, the supreme truth around which all others are woven.

 

            “When Adam and Eve sinned, they immediately became aware of their nakedness, and to provide them clothing of skins, animals had to be killed.  From the beginning, guilt and shame had to be covered by sacrifice.  That was the first great principle of redemption taught in Scripture.  But those skins, like all the countless sacrifices thereafter, were only symbolic.  They could cover man’s nakedness but not his sin.” 

 

            The above was the first principle of redemption and the second principle is that God reveled that He Himself would provide the necessary sacrifices for man.  In the book of Genesis God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son through whom the divine promises could be fulfilled. In that portion of Genesis we see that Abraham took Isaac to the exact mountain where many, many years later we see that David would also buy and offer sacrifices in order to stop a plague that he started because of his sin. It was also on that same mountain Solomon, his son would build the temple.  On the day that Abraham took Isaac to the mountain he had him carry the wood for the sacrifice and then Abraham tied Isaac and raised his knife to kill his only son, but God stopped him and provided a ram to take his son’s place.  Abraham named that place of sacrifice, “The Lord Will Provide” (Gen. 22:14).

 

            We now move onto the third great principle of redemption that God revealed, and that was that acceptable sacrifice had to be unblemished.  MacArthur writes “When the death angel was about to pass over Egypt, striking dead all the first-born, God provided for the Israelites to be protected by smearing the blood of an unblemished lamb on their doorposts and lintels (Ex. 12:5-7).

            “But in the requirements and rituals of the Old Testament, those principles were only pictured.  No sacrifice offered by man could cover sin, provide a substitute for himself, be morally and spiritually unblemished, or become an acceptable act of worship to God.  Only God Himself could present such a sacrifice, and it is that divine sacrifice to whom all other sacrifices pointed.  And when that perfect sacrifice was made, the others no longer had significance.  When Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the Temple was torn in two and the validity of the sacrificial system ended.  Less than forty years later, with the total destruction of the Temple in A. D. 70, even the possibility of other Old Testament sacrifice ended.”

 

            With that we will end this SD, and I believe that we will be able to finish this section in our next SD.  I have to say that this SD has a lot of very important things in it, and if those who read it will take the time to read all the Biblical references in it then it will make it even richer.

 

4/17/2023 10:11 AM