SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/23/2023 9:34 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-3
“Their Persistent Plea”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:29-31
Message of the verse: “29 And as they
were going out from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. 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!" 31 And the multitude
sternly told them to be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying,
"Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’”
I want to begin this SD by looking at a part of
verse 30 “hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, "Lord,
have mercy on us, Son of David!" I
have to say that my vocabulary is not as good as my wife’s as she is a walking
dictionary, and so when I come across a word that I have never heard before I
have to look it up to see what it means.
With that said I want to quote from MacArthur’s commentary which has a
word in it that I don’t believe I have heard of before. “Krazo,
from which cried out it taken, is an onomatopoetic word that was used for any sort of
screaming or anguished shout. It was
used of the rantings of insane people and of a woman’s cries at child
birth. It was used of the Canaanite
woman near Tyre and Sidon who cried out for Jesus to heal hear daughter (Matt.
15:22), of the crowd’s shouting for Jesus’ crucifixion (Mark 15:13-14), and
even of Jesus’ crying out from the cross (Matt. 27:50).”
Onomatopoetic
is a word that when it is used it is like the sound of the word’s meaning. A cuckoo bird is an example of it. Hope that helps, so at any rate we get the
picture that these men were really crying out so loud in order to get the Lord’s
attention, and they did this because they were absolutely desperate, as the realized
that this would be their last hope of ever seeing again.
I
mentioned in our last SD that I wanted to talk about spiritual blindness, and
when we look at these two blind beggars we can get the idea that they had
spiritual sight, as this was uncommon while blind people was common during that
time period. Physically they could see
nothing, but spiritually they saw a great deal.
Why
would I say that? Well look at what they
were calling Jesus, as they called Him “Son of David!" They knew who He was, that is the greater son
of David, the promised Messiah. Son of
David, clearly shows their recognition of who He was. Let us look at Luke 1:32 “"He will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give
Him the throne of His father David.”
John
MacArthur writes “But the blind men’s knowledge of Christ and their great
determination were tempered by humility.
In asking for healing they acknowledged their unworthiness of help and
there themselves entirely on Jesus’ mercy.
Their actions were necessarily over the din of the multitude. But their hearts were right, because despite
their great need, they knew they deserved nothing from the Son of David and
that only His grace could help them. One
cannot be dogmatic about the extent of their faith at this point, but they
clearly recognized Jesus’ messiahship and His supernatural power to heal.”
There
is one thing that I want to say about Jesus’ healing, and that is not all of
the people that He healed, and we don’t really know how man He did heal, but
certainly not all of them became believers.
Think for instance about the ten lepers that He healed, and only one of
them came back to thank Him, and he was a Samaritan who became a believer.
I
would like at this time to quote from a SD that I did back in April of 2018,
which has to do with salvation. The
section that I was looking at on this April 18th of 2018 SD had to
do with the salvation of Lydia.
John
MacArthur writes “Remembering God’s sovereignty in salvation is the foundation
of a proper perspective on evangelism.
Salvation does not depend on clever evangelistic strategies, or the
skill of the preacher, or a masterful presentation. It is not a human work at all; it is God’s
work. ‘I planted,’ Paul wrote to the
Corinthians, ‘Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the
one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.’ (1 Cor. 3:6-7).
“In 1 Corinthians 2:1-4, Paul described his evangelistic
approach to the Corinthians:
‘1 And
when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of
wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know
nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in
weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching
were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and
of power.’”
Paul would later say that he was all things to all
people, and even though he was an accomplished scholar, Paul adapted to who his
audience was in handling the Scriptures to be able to tell others about
Christ. I just received a letter from a
missionary friend of mine who talked about going up into the hill country of
the nation that he lives in to talk to a certain tribe about the saving
knowledge of Jesus Christ. The letter
began rather humorous as he states that he had the use “the Moses rod,” in
order to help him get up the hills as they were rather steep and he is getting
older. He then goes on to tell of the leader
of these people who he states was very much against Christianity. My friend asked the man if he would just come
and hear him speak a couple of times and after hearing him speak this leader
came up to him and told him that he wanted to be saved and wanted to be
baptized. The story did bring tears to
my heart reading about this man who wanted nothing to do with Christ, and yet
God opened up his cold hard heart to receive Christ as his Savior. Yes God is the One who opens hearts to
receive the message of the gospel, and all we have to do is to be willing to
tell the message of the gospel and then allow God to do His work through His
Holy Spirit.
We will conclude this SD by giving a quote from A. W.
Tozer that comes from John MacArthur’s commentary as he talks about the fact
that in our day there are many who foolishly act as though God were wholly
dependent on them to reach the lost.
“Probably
the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God
does not need our help. We commonly
represent Him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about
seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to
the world; but as said the Lady Julian, ‘I saw truly that God doeth all-things,
be it never so little.’ The God who
worketh all things surely needs no help and no helpers.
“Too
many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty
God. An effective speaker can easily
excite pity in his hearers, not only for the heathen but for the God who has
tried so hard and so long to save them and has failed for want of support. I fear that thousands of young persons enter
Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the
embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities
seem unable to get Him out of. (The
Knowledge of the Holy [New York: Harper & Row, 1975], 41)’”
I conclude this SD for today by talking about how the
people around these blind men did not want them to talk to Jesus, but the
determination of these two blind men caused them to keep crying out.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful for
Jan. 26, 1974 which was the day that the Lord opened my ears and my eyes to
hear and to see the gospel as His Holy Spirit gave me an effectual call I could
not say no to.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Holy Spirit will fill me and
keep me filled this entire day, and do it each and every day so that the things
that I do will bring glory to the Lord.
5/23/2023 10:29 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment