SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/4/2023 10:43 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Confrontation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 21:23
Message of the
verse: “23
When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came
to Him while He was teaching, and said, "By what authority are You doing
these things, and who gave You this authority?’”
In my last SD I talked about the ordination that the
Jewish Rabbi’s went through and I mentioned that this would be compared with
what Jesus went through on His ordination, which we actually looked at when we
looked at Him riding into Jerusalem on what is called Psalm Sunday. However Jesus had no ordination like what was
talked about in the last SD. The reason
that this is brought up is because this is why the Jewish leaders did not
recognize Him as anyone of importance because He was not following their
rules. I guess that one thing that
upsets me about these Jewish leaders during the time when Christ was on the
earth is that they would brag about how much they knew about the Scriptures,
but they missed all of the prophecies about Jesus’ first coming. Only a few knew who Jesus was because they
studied the Scriptures that talked about His first coming. Do you remember what I started looking at the
book of Matthew almost four years ago and in those early SD’s I talked about
the circumcision of Jesus and two people knew who He really was, so they would
have known about this by studying the Scriptures. How about the Magi who came from the old land
that was called Babylon, and I believe that they came to see Jesus when he was
young, but not a baby, and the question is how did they know about His
birth. I think that there are two
reasons, and one is because they knew about the prophet Daniel who wrote about
the Messiah’s coming to earth and being rejected by those in Israel. This is seen in the great prophecies of
Daniel chapter 9, and I will not take the time to go over it now, but on my
Spiritual Diaries it can be found when I went over the book of Matthew. The bottom line is that these Jewish leaders
wanted nothing to do with Jesus because He did not fit into their little
religious system, which by the way was mostly false.
We see again in verse twenty-three
the words "By what authority,’ then the leaders asked, did He not only
teach and preach but even heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the
dead? Most especially, why had He
presumed to take upon Himself—an untrained, unrecognized, self-appointed rabbi—the
task of casting the merchants and moneychangers out of the Temple. Although not
themselves religious leaders, those men were operating their businesses under
the auspices of the Temple authorities. ‘Who
gave you…authority to throw them out?’ those authorities asked Jesus.” (MacArthur commentaries.)
It does seem strange that although
they did not recognize the source of legitimacy of Jesus’ power, as this would
be difficult to do, even though at one time they said His power came from
Satan. They knew He had the power to do what is described in the paragraph
above, but the question was about His authority. In the history of all time there has never
been anyone who has done the miracles that Jesus did while walking on planet
earth. I think that one could say that
in the three years while Jesus was on planet earth that He took care of most
illness and other problems the people had in Israel, and yet we get these
questions about His authority from the Jewish leaders. “The miracles were so obvious, numerous, and
well attested that the religious leaders never doubted that Jesus performed
them, having seen many of them with their own eyes” writes John MacArthur.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I know
that I have been hard on these Jewish leaders, but the truth is that Jesus was
hard on them too. I think that one thing that I do in my morning prayer time is
to ask the Lord to search my heart as found at the end of Psalm 139 is so that
I don’t have any sin that is unconfessed in my life, perhaps sins that are
similar to these Jewish leaders. Salvation
was given to me free and so the truth is that I have nothing to boast about,
but I do owe everything to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Praise the
Lord for the free gift of salvation, remembering that although it is free to
me, that it cost the Father the death of His Son to provide it for me, and for
that I am eternally thankful.
7/4/2023 11:43
AM
No comments:
Post a Comment