SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/14/2024 11:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “Faithfulness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 24:45-51
Message of the verses: “45 “Who then is
the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household
to give them their food at the proper time? 46 “Blessed is that slave whom his
master finds so doing when he comes. 47 "Truly I say to you that he will
put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 “But if that evil slave says in
his heart, ‘My master is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and begins to beat his
fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; 50 the master of that slave
will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he
does not know, 51 and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the
hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
I want to begin by looking at verse fifty: But “the master of that slave will come on a
day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know.” This is different from when the Master comes
to reward His slaves, and He will come this time as Judge and Executioner to
condemn and to destroy. He will the cut
the unbelieving slave in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, and
this will be in eternal fire.
MacArthur
writes “The phrase cut…in pieces is from dichotomeo
and literally means to cut into two parts.
It is used in that strict sense in the Greek translation of the Old
Testament in regard to the preparation of an animal sacrifice (Ex. 29:17). To Jews it would therefore carry the unmistakable
idea of destruction and death.”
We
read also in verse 51 that they will be assigned along with the hypocrites
suggests that they were not hypocrites.
Similar to what is going on today, and that is many people are adamant that
they are not believers, and so in that day this will also be true saying that
they do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that would mean that they are
not a hypocrite. They will ware their
unbelief like a badge of honor, and thus be as lost as those hypocrites. They will go to the same place as the
religious phonies they feel superior to and despise.
When
our Lord returns the same magnificent glory
and power as seen in Matthew 24:30 (“Then will appear in heaven the sign of the
Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see
the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,”) that
will draw His own people to Him in loving gratitude will repel most unbelievers
in hateful indignation. For the believers
it will be the time of final reception and redemption; for the unbelievers it
will be the time of final rejection and judgments.
Now
here is how I am going to do this last part of this chapter as there are only a
few more parts of verse 51 that are in need of going over and then in MacArthur’s
commentary he writes a fairly long section that will end his comments on this
24th chapter of Matthew. I
will quote from his commentary as I usually do when I am not going over
Scripture, and this will take at least one more SD to complete the study of
Matthew 24, which is the first part of what is called “The Olivet Discourse,”
which is a study of what will go on during the seven year Tribulation as
described from our Lord as He was talking to His disciples on the Mount of
Olives, shortly before He will die on a Roman cross for our sins.
“All
unbelievers—those who completely reject the Lord and those who think one day
they will trust in Him, those who are honest in their unbelief and those who
are hypocritical in their faith—will suffer the same destiny of hell. In that place there will be weeping …and the
gnashing of teeth, figures representing inconsolable grief and unremitting
torment.”
I
will now begin quoting from the last part of MacArthur’s commentary, and as
stated will hopefully finish that quotation in my next SD.
“The
thrust of Jesus’ warning is not simply to inform unbelievers about the horror
of facing an eternal hell but tu use that dreadful prospect as a motive for
believing in Him in order to escape it.
His appeal is to believe while there is opportunity, rather than
foolishly wait for a supposedly more propitious time that might never come and
might not be taken advantage of if it did come.
“In
his commentary on this passage, William Barclay relates the following story to
illustrate the danger of spiritual procrastination:
‘There is a fable which
tells of three apprentice devils who were coming to this earth to finish their
apprenticeship. They were talking to
Satan, the chief of the devils, about their plans to tempt and to ruin
men. The first said, ‘I will tell them
that there is no God.’ Satan said, ‘That
will not delude many, for they know that there is a God.’ The second said, ‘I will tell men that there
is no hell.’ Satan answered, ‘You will
deceive no one that way; men know even now that there is a hell for sin.’ The third said, ‘I will tell men that there
is no hurry.’ ‘Go,’ said Satan, ‘and you
will ruin men by the thousands.’ The
most dangerous of all delusions is that there is plenty of time.’ (The Gospel
of Matthew, vol. 2 [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975], p. 317)’”
“16 Your eyes have
seen my unformed substance; And
in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them” (Psalm 139:16).
2/14/2024 12:13 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment