SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/15/2023 8:41 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: “He Manifested Divine Compassion and Power”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 21:14
Message of the verse: “And the blind and the lame come to Him in the temple, and He healed them.”
We have a saying in our country which is “Getting
out of Dodge,” and that is exactly what the priest, merchants, moneychangers,
sacrifice-buyers did after they saw what Jesus did, as they did not want to be
around Him. However the blind and the
lame, though surely awed by Jesus, were not afraid of Him. Even immediately after His dramatic display
of divine indignation, those needy souls correctly sensed that the Lord’s fury
was in no way directed at them. The
wicked and the unrepentant can expect God’s anger, but those who humbly seek
for His truth and His help can expect His compassion.
In the New Testament, especially in the books of the
gospels and Acts we often see those who are diseased and crippled, and most of
them are beggars, continually gathered at the Temple, as they are hoping at the
least for a gift of a few denarii and at the most they were seeking a miracle
of healing. Most of these are despised
and ignored by most of their countrymen, in great part because they were
considered to be suffering as a direct result of their sins, either theirs or
their parent’s sin. The story of the blind
beggar that Jesus heals in John chapter nine is a good example of this. Also the selfish leaders of the Temple had
little compassion for them as seen in Matthew 23:4.
John MacArthur writes “Had it not been for the countless
thousands of sick, diseased, blind, deaf, and other suffering people in
Palestine, both Jesus’ great compassion and His great power of healing would be
unknown to us. Compared with the length
of eternity, all earthly afflictions are temporary. But in this life they are very real and very
trying, and the Lord does not minimize them.
It was to alleviate suffering as well as to demonstrate His divine power
and authority that Jesus compassionately healed those who came to Him and never
turned them away or chided them.”
The Bible makes it clear that Jesus is King and His compassion was a supreme credential of His kingship, and not only because of the power it demonstrated but because of the gracious love it demonstrated which is so characteristic of God, however it is uncharacteristic of fallen man. We talked about how John the Baptist, while in prison was having some doubts of Jesus being the Messiah, and thus sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus about this. Jesus told John’s disciples, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matt. 11:4-5).
I think it best to quote another paragraph from MacArthur’s
commentary to make sure that the point that he is making is made. “Believers know that Jesus Christ some day is
going to come to this world in devastating judgment, that all judgment has been
given to Him by the Father, and that He alone holds the keys to death and
hell. They know He controls the destiny
of every soul, and that He has the sovereign and just right to send unbelieving
men and women to hell forever. But, like
the blind and the lame who came to Jesus in the Temple, Christians come to the
Lord with awe but also with perfect confidence, knowing that He will not turn
them away or condemn them. They know He
loves His children and will never do them harm but always do them good, even
when they experience that good through His hand of discipline (Heb. 12:6).”
Our Lord’s majestic display of divine compassion was
accompanied by a mighty expression of divine power. No sooner had the blind and the lame
approached Him for help than He healed them.
It is only God who could restore sight to eyes totally destroyed by
disease, as many blind eyes were in that day, as Jesus healed thousands of
blind people while on earth, most of whom are not written about but we know
that this happened: “And there are also many other
things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that
even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written” (John
21:25).
6/15/2023 9:20 AM
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