SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/28/2023 9:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “The Invitation Rejected”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
22:1-6
Message of the verses: “1 Jesus spoke to
them again in parables, saying, 2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared
to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 “And he sent out his slaves
to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were
unwilling to come. 4 “Again
he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited,
"Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all
butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."’ 5 “But
they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business,
6 and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.”
I have been writing lately about what is seen in
verse five where the first group of people that were offered an invitation to
the king’s son’s wedding just paid little attention to the slaves who came,
actually the second time, and just went their way in doing what could be
described as normal things. In today’s
SD I will be talking about what could be described as worse than indifferent as
they were actually hostile to the slaves who came this second time to invite
them to the wedding feast that actually was all ready to begin. In an act of unbelievably brutal arrogance,
they seized the king’s slaves and mistreated them and killed them. In treating these slaves with contempt they
actually demonstrated contempt for the king himself, and in mistreating and
killing his slaves they committed a flagrant act of rebellion. I think that we all know where this is going,
as John MacArthur writes “As already noted, because Jesus had said that the
parable was about the kingdom of heaven, its meaning needed no interpretation
to any thinking hearer. The king
obviously was God, and the invited guests were His chosen people, Israel, those
who already had been called by Him.”
MacArthur
then goes on to give a short history of how the nation of Israel began, which
can be seen in Genesis 12:1-3 when God called Abraham, whose descendants would
be blessed and also be a channel of blessing to the rest of the world. As I think about this my mind goes to the
Sunday school class that I am teaching from the book of Zechariah, and what I
think I will do now is quote from one of the lessons which will also include a
quote from John MacArthur’s sermon from Zechariah answering the question as to “Why
God chose Israel.”
Let
me say at the outset of this quotation that it will be fairly long but I think
worthwhile reading.
“In
the first part of this lesson I want to try and answer the question “Why did
God chose Israel?” I mentioned that some
of the things in these lessons will come from the time when I studied Zechariah
beginning in April of 2016. As we look
at several reasons why God chose Israel I will end by playing a small portion
of a sermon from John MacArthur, but I will have it on the paper so that you
can follow along. It is important for us
to understand why God chose Israel for after all Paul tells us in Romans 11
that we as believers are grafted into Israel.
The first reason is that God needed a nation of people in
the world, in order to proclaim the existence of the true God. After sin entered the world and the people
began to move around to different parts of the world, God, because of His love
for them desired to show the people about His love, but people did not want to
hear about God and His love for them and so they ended up seeing His wrath as
He drowned every person on the earth with the exception of eight, Noah and his
family. After the flood people still did
not want to know about God and so sometime after that God called Abram who
later named him Abraham to begin a nation where God could accomplish the things
that we are going over.
The second reason needed a nation of people in the world
was that He needed that nation to reveal the Messiah. Jesus said in John 4:22 “Salvation is of the
Jews,” notice that He did not say that salvation is for the Jews, although many
Jews will receive God’s salvation.
The third reason God needed a nation was He needed a
nation to be a priest among men.
Understand that a priest is one who speaks to God on the behalf of men
as he intercedes for men, and on occasions will speak to men about God. Let us look at Exodus 19:5-6a “5 ’Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice
and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the
peoples, for all the earth is Mine; 6
and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”
Next God chose Israel to transmit and preserve
Scripture. I believe that almost every
book in the Bible was written by a Jew and not only did they write what God
told them to write, but they also persevered what God told them to write. We have today many copies of the Word of God,
more copies of these ancient manuscripts than any other ancient book and when
you compare them they are virtually the same.
Fifthly God needed a nation that could show to the world
that He is faithful. God kept or will
keep in the future all the promises that He has made to the nation of Israel
and so as people look at these promises and see that God fulfilled them then
they will know that God is faithful and a covenant keeping God. John MacArthur writes “Israel stands for all
time as proof that God is a covenant keeping God, He always keeps His promise, and the world
needs only to look at the history of Israel to see that that is proven.”
The seventh reason God needed a nation was to show the
world that He is a gracious God who can forgive sin. Micah writes in Mic. 7:18 “Who is a God like
You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of
His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in
unchanging love.
Our next reason is that God needed a nation to show His
anger, so we go from being gracious to being anger and both of these qualities
are attributes of God, both are who God is.
“This last point I want to mention in some detail for a minute. God chose Israel in order to show the world His reaction against an unrepentant heart. Back in Leviticus 26:14 God said to them, "If you will not hearken to me and will not do all these commandments, and if you shall despise my statues, if your soul abhor my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will also do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, the burning fever that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart. You shall sow your seed in vain for your enemy shall eat it." That means your enemies will kill your children. "I will set my face against you, you will be slain before your enemies, and they that hate you shall reign over you and you shall flee when nobody is pursuing you. And if you will not for all of that hearken to me, I will punish you seven times more than that for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power." That's pretty clear language. God says, "You're going to be judged." In verse 32, "I will even bring you into the land which is desolation. Your enemies who dwell therein will be astonished at you. I will scatter you among the nations. I will draw out a sword after you and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste." You know something? That happened in Israel's history, and it's happened again and again, recurrently in their history, whenever they have been unrepentant, whenever they have been denying sin, whenever they have failed to bow to a holy God, they have found that that has come to pass again and again and again, even in modern times.
“In Deuteronomy again, the same thing indicated in chapter 28 and verse 37. It says, "And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, a byword among all nations to which the Lord shall lead thee." In other words, there might even be a proverb like this: "He's as homeless as an Israelite. He's as chastened as an Israelite, because you will be the very byword for chastening, the very byword for homelessness, for wandering." In verse 64 of Deuteronomy 28, says "And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from one end of the earth to the other, and there thou shalt serve other gods which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone, and among these nations shalt thy find no rest, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing eyes, and sorrow of mind and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee and thou shalt fear day and night and thou shalt have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say 'Would God it were evening' and at evening thou shalt say 'Would God it were morning,' for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see." God says, "It's going to be awful, it's going to be terrible, it's going to be fearful, when you're scattered among the nations because of your sin and your failure to repent and turn to me."
“It is precisely at that juncture in the life of Israel that we enter the book of Zechariah. This nation had been in sin, and they had not repented of that sin. They had failed to acknowledge that sin to God. And as a result God said, "You're going to get scattered again." And they did and they were taken captive into Babylon and that Babylonian captivity, as we saw last time, lasted for a period of 70 years. Look in your Bible at 2Chronicles chapter 36, that's the last chapter in the book, 2 Chronicles chapter 36, verse 14, and here's the historical setting for what had happened in the Babylonian captivity. And by the way, the principle of judgment upon sin has not changed at all. God still reacts violently against sin. But notice 2 Chronicles 36:14, "Moreover all of the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the nations and polluted the house of the Lord which He had hallowed in Jerusalem." Now it's gotten pretty debauched at this point in the history of Israel. They have polluted everything possible. Verse 15, "And the Lord God of their Fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place." He sent messengers because He cared and the messengers were the prophets and God sent them in love but verse 16 says, "They mocked the messengers of God. They despised His words, misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people till there was no remedy. Therefore He brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of the sanctuary and had no compassion upon young men or maiden, old men or him that stooped for age. He gave all into his hand, and all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of the Princes. All these he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels." It was pretty sad to see that great, magnificent temple into shambles. And those who had escaped from the sword, those who happened to live through the terrible siege, and the terrible killing that occurred, He carried away to Babylon. And you notice the "He" in all of these verses is God really. It's God doing it, using the Babylonians as His agents.
“Well, they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the King of Persia. The King of the Chaldeans, of course, is the primary "he," but behind the scenes it's God. Why? To fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. For as long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath to fulfill three score and seven years. 70 years, the land would be desolate, they would be carried away into captivity. And God was chastening their unrepentant hearts.
“Then after 70 years, you remember what happened, God said "That's enough. That's enough chastening." And then verse 22 picks up the story from there. 2 Chronicles 36:22, "In the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished." You remember Jeremiah 29:10 prophesied that it would only be 70 years. So in order to fulfill that prophecy, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, and he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and putting it in writing saying, "Thus saith Cyrus, Kind of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord, God of heaven, given me. He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all His people, the Lord is God be with him, and let him go up." And there was the decree of Cyrus that sent the people who wanted to go back to the land.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am thankful that God chose Israel because
through Israel came my Savior Jesus Christ who came to earth to suffer and die
in my place so that one day I can be with Him forever in heaven.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to live for the Lord and do the
things that He has called me to do for the cause of Christ, including writing
my Spiritual Diaries each day and posting them onto my blogs so others can see
their need of the Savior.
7/28/2023 10:06 AM
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