SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/7/2023 8:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The Counter Question”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
21:24-27
Message of the verses: “24 Jesus said to
them, "I will also ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I will also
tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 “The baptism of John was from
what source, from heaven or from men?" And they began
reasoning among themselves, saying, "If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say
to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 26 “But if we say, ‘From men,’ we
fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet." 27 And answering
Jesus, they said, "We do not know." He also said to them,
"Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
I suppose all of us have answered a question with a
question, and that is what Jesus did here in verses 24-25a. Jesus was not being evasive and had no reason
to be, having given the answer to their question countless times before. And if they answered His question now, He
would answer theirs, telling them once again by what authority He did these
things.
The question that He asked them was a very simple
question “The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from
men?" The truth is that John the
Baptist started his ministry before Jesus began His which was actually foretold
in the book of Isaiah, as John was the forerunner of the Messiah. Also it is true that the religious leaders
did not believe John the Baptist, and again I think the reason was that he was
getting in the way of their false religion.
Now when we see the words “The Baptism of John” we must conclude that
Jesus is talking about his entire ministry, and by the reasoning of these
Jewish religious leaders they totally understood this.
John
was the last prophet of the Old Testament age and, like Jesus, became popular
and admired by the masses of Judea. As
mentioned John was readying the people for the Messiah, and his demeanor and
the content and power of his preaching had made a great impact throughout
Israel. It was after Herod arrested John
for condemning his adulterous marriage to his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias,
the king hesitated for a long time in putting John to death because the people
considered him to be a prophet as seen in Matthew 14:3-5.
These
Jewish leaders quickly realized, Jesus’ question put them on the horns of a
great dilemma, something no one really was to be on. Once they began to talk about this question
among themselves they saw that they would be in trouble in answering the
question either way as these verses show us the quandary that they were
in. MacArthur writes “It was not simply
that they had rejected John himself but that they had also rejected John’s
clear testimony about Jesus, whom that prophet had openly acclaimed to be “the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and the very “Son of God” (John
1:29, 34). To have accepted John as a
prophet from heaven would have required accepting Jesus as the Messiah; and
that they absolutely would not do.”
There
was no amount of testimony from John or evidence from Jesus Himself that would
bring them to recognize Him as Messiah.
These men were trained to discount or explain away facts as well as
scriptural truths that were not consistent with their humanly-devised religious
beliefs and standards. The following is
what the man born blind from John chapter 9 told the Pharisees about Jesus in
9:31-33, and remember this blind man was not yet a believer when he said “31
"We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and
does His will, He hears him. 32 "Since the beginning of time it has never
been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 “If this man
were not from God, He could do nothing.’”
It is for sure that as one digs into this story they will see that these
Pharisees did not want to hear the truth about Jesus, especially from a former
blind beggar. So what were they to do
about this? They threw him out of the
synagogue, and this was something permanent not temporary like some offenders
would get.
7/7/2023 8:48 AM
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