SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/22/2023 9:55 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Their Persistent
Plea”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:29-31
Message of the verses: “29 As they were
leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed Him. 30 And two blind men sitting by the
road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, "Lord, have mercy on
us, Son of David!" 31 The crowd sternly told them to be quiet, but they
cried out all the more, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’”
It is because that Jesus Christ is truly God and
truly man that I think that it is possible that when Jesus walked into Jericho
that He may have been thinking about His human ancestry for when the children
of Israel came in to conquer the land they first came to Jericho. Israel sent two spies into the land and they
ended up in the presence of Rahab the harlot.
I guess that if you were looking for some information that this would be
the place where you could get it as many men may have come to see Rahab. Rahab’s story is an amazing one as according
to Matthew 1:5 we read “Salmon
was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth,
and Obed the father of Jesse.” “The gospel of Matthew opens with Jesus' family
tree and affirms for its Jewish audience that Jesus is the promised Messiah in
the line of David. But the gospel writer does something out of the ordinary—he
includes five women in Jesus' genealogy: Tamar, Rahab,
Ruth, Uriah's wife (Bathsheba), and Mary.” This quote came from Google. Another thing that Jesus may have been
thinking about was it was probably near Jericho that Jesus fasted for forty
days before He began His ministry. I
have mentioned in earlier SD’s that it is my belief that Jesus did drink water
while fasting for those forty days. It
would have been supernatural for him to be without food or water for that long,
something that did happen to Moses while on Mt. Sinai.
I have chosen to use the NASB95
version today, but let us look at verse 30 in the NASB which says “30 And behold,
two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried
out, saying, "Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’” The
difference that I want to point out is in the NASB we see the word behold in it and not in
the NASB95. John MacArthur writes “Behold
was used to call special attention to something or someone, in this case two
blind men who ordinarily would have gone unnoticed. Blind people were extremely common in the
Near East, espically in the cities.
Because none of them could work and few had families who could or would
support them, the majority of blind people were beggars, as were these two (see
Mark 10:46). Like most other beggars,
they congregated outside the city gates to take advantage of travelers, who
were more likely to be carrying money than the average person on the street.”
It was in Jericho that a special balsam bush grew
from which a medicine was made to treat blindness. It was because of this that Jericho had had
many blind people there as they came for the cure. I have to say that from what I learned that
there was little to be done for a blind person in those days. Many people were born blind because of a gonorrheal
infection of the eyes, contracted from the mother during birth. MacArthur writes “Many women carried the
bacterium, although most of them were not affected by it themselves. Today with our modern medicine there is
something put into the eyes of newborns that prevent this problem.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: In
this section so far I have been talking about physical blindness, but spiritual
blindness is caused by the original sin that began back in the garden as seen
in Gen. chapter three. I once was blind,
but now I see are lyrics to a Christian song and this was certainly true of
me. I am thankful that the Holy Spirit
of God gave me an effectual call in order for my spiritual eyes to be opened.
My Steps of Faith for Today: It is my desire to tell others about their
spiritual blindness so that they can come to realize their need for the Savior
so their eyes will be opened.
5/22/2023 10:29 AM
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