SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/14/2023 9:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “He Revealed
Commitment To Divine Scripture”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 21:13
Message of the verse: “And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den,”
Jesus often referred to the Old Testament, for that
was all that there was at that time, and this time He refers to Isaiah 56:7 “Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them
joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will
be acceptable on My altar; For
My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.’” Notice in the highlighted portion of this
verse “for all the peoples.” When Mark
writes of this event he adds that last section.
Matthew probably omitted these words because he was primarily writing to
the Jews. The major point is that Jesus’
cleansing of the Temple was consistent with the Word of God.
John
MacArthur writes “The
Temple was to be a place of worship, quiet meditation, contemplation, praise,
and devotion, a place where God’s people could draw close to Him in worship,
sacrifice, and offerings and could seek His will and blessing. It was not meant to be a combination
marketplace, stockyard, and bank, where hucksters and charlatans carried on
their greedy enterprises under the guise of serving and worshiping the Lord.”
Let
us now look at what Solomon said at the dedication of the Temple of his day in
1 Kings 8:27-30 “27 "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold,
heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house
which I have built! 28 “Yet have regard to the prayer of Your servant and to
his supplication, O LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which
Your servant prays before You today; 29 that Your eyes may be open toward this
house night and day, toward the place of which You have said, ‘My name shall be
there,’ to listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this
place. 30 “Listen to the supplication of Your servant and of Your people
Israel, when they pray toward this place; hear in heaven Your dwelling place;
hear and forgive.”
Think about what was there before the Temple was
built, and that was the Tabernacle which the children of Israel built on their
way to the Promised Land while stopping at Mt. Sinai, where they spent a year
there. That Tabernacle was carried
around in different places in the nation of Israel until David finally brought
it to Jerusalem where it stayed until Solomon, his son built the Temple. It was during the time of when the Tabernacle
was still used by Israel that a woman called Hannah came to it to worship. She was one of two wives, Elkanah, and I think that because Hannah was childless that she was loved more
than the other wife who used to make fun of Hannah because she was
childless. Hannah came to where the Tabernacle
was and she prayed that God would give her a child, and she said that she would
give the child back to the Lord if He granted her request. The story is in 1 Samuel 1:9-20. In that story Samuel was born and after he
was weaned Hannah gave the child to the Lord and he stayed with Eli the priest at
the place where the Tabernacle was.
MacArthur writes “David declared “One thing I have asked from the LORD,
that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my
life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple” (Ps.
27:4).”
Let us look at the last section of verse 13 where we
see the words “robber’s den,” and then look at Jeremiah 7:11 “"Has this
house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight?
Behold, I, even I, have seen it," declares the LORD.” Once again we see the Lord Jesus referring to
the Old Testament showing that the Temple was being used for what it was intended
to be. We can see that
extortion was being used in the Temple, and that means that there were thieves
there. MacArthur concludes “But unlike
normal thieves, their robbery was public, and they stole and took refuge in the
same place. The sanctuary of God had
become a sanctuary for robbers.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The temple for the New Testament believers is
in them. 1Co 3:16 “Do you not know that
you are a temple of God and that
the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Now as I go back to the second paragraph
which is a quote from John MacArthur and I have highlighted it, I think about
me, and that as Paul writes “you
are a temple of God and that
the Spirit of God dwells in you?” As I compare what MacArthur writes about the
Old Testament Temple and then myself being the Temple of God where the Holy
Spirit lives, if I am not careful in following what God desires me to do then
some of those same negative things that happened in the Old Testament Temple
can happen in my life.
My Steps of Faith for Today: It is my desire to follow the things that the
Lord has called me to do for the cause of Christ and not fall away from doing
them because of sin.
6/14/2023 9:57 AM
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