SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/11/2023 9:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Connection”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
21:31b-32
Message of the verses: “Jesus said to
them, "Truly I say to you that the tax-gatherers and harlots will get into
the kingdom of God before you. 32 "For John came to you in the way of
righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gatherers and harlots
did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so
as to believe him.”
Jesus’ opponents, as we saw in our pervious SD gave
Jesus the only answer they could give Him, and now we can see that Jesus showed
them their connection to the parable. Jesus informed them that although their
answer to His question was right, but I think that although they said that they
did not know that they really did know.
Their response to Him and His ministry was wrong and also wicked. Their
own words condemned them. They did not
respond to “the latter” son, who did the father’s will, but to the former, who
did not do it. Let us look at Matthew
23:3 “therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according
to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.” Jesus is talking to the same people in
chapter 23, and this goes along with how they responded to the parable, “The
say things, and do not do them.” Thes
men claimed to obey God, but their actions denied that He had any place in their
hearts. They also claimed to be longing
for the Messiah but they lauded His name; but when He came, they would not have
Him, and the reason was they loved to be in control of the people.
Here
is what the Lord said to them: "Truly I say to you that the tax-gatherers
and harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you.” These people would not have anything to do
with tax-gatherers and harlots, and so what Jesus told them was a great rebuke
to them, and cut deeper or infuriated them more than this rebuke Jesus gave
them. To their thoughts the tax-gatherers
and harlots were the scum of society, perhaps even worse than Gentiles, and
that meant very low in their estimation.
The tax-gathers were actually people of Israel who turned on their own
people and made money off of them.
Matthew was a tax-gatherer, and also Zaccheus became believers, and
Matthew was one of Jesus’ disciples. The
harlots were women who sold their own body for money, and there was a former
harlot who followed Jesus, Mary. MacArthur concludes “If any people were
totally outside the pale of God’s mercy, the self-righteous Jewish leaders
though, it was those two groups.”
MacArthur
goes on: “The men who now stood before Jesus, on the other hand, were the
religious elite, the interpreters of God’s law and the keepers of God’s Temple. They claimed to give their lives in obedience
to God and lived under the self-serving illusion that, because of their exalted
positions and their many religious works, they were of all men most pleasing to
Him.” They were not!
The
tax-gatherers and harlots were like the son who said that he would not go and
work in his father’s vineyard, but later did because they chose to disobey God
but later repented and so they would get into the kingdom of God before they
would. MacArthur adds “Before you does
not mean that the unbelieving leaders would eventually enter the Kingdom,
because no unbeliever will ever enter.
Jesus simply used the expression to show God’s reversal of man-made
standards for salvation. The tax-gatherers
and harlots were nearer the kingdom than the chief priests and elders, not
because they were inherently more righteous or acceptable to God, but because
they were more ready to acknowledge their need for God’s grace than the
self-satisfied priests and elders. Jesus’
point was that claims to religion do not qualify a person to enter the kingdom,
and even gross sin, when repented of, will not keep a person out.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I realize that it was by grace through faith
that brought me to the Lord. I also
realize that I am to live by faith and do the things that God desires for me to
do, therefore I am not to brag about what God is doing through me, for it is
all Him who receives the glory.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to keep me humble before Him.
7/11/2023 10:45 AM
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