SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/15/2024 10:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “Faithfulness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
24:45-51
Message of the verses: “45 “Who then is
the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to
give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his
master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set
him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My
master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and
drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he
does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in
pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.”
I finished the last SD by beginning to quote from John
MacArthur’s commentary on this section.
I have been reading to MacArthur’s commentaries and listening to his
sermons on the subjects that I write about on my Spiritual Diaries for a long
time. Before that I would use the
writings of the late Dr. Warren Wiersbe as he has a commentary on every book in
the Bible, so when I was working on the Old Testament I would often quote from
his commentaries. Many times in MacArthur’s
commentaries he will write things after or before looking at the text and that
is when I prefer to quote from them, and that is what is going on as I would
like to finish up this 24th chapter of Matthew, a chapter that I
have been working on since the middle of November since last year.
“Why,
one wonders, is Christ waiting so long to come again? First of all, He is waiting for evil to run
its course. In his vision on Patmos,
John saw an angel come ‘out of the temple, crying out with a loud voice to Him
who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle and reap, because the hour to reap
has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ And He who sat on the cloud swung Hi sickle
over the earth; and the earth w as reaped’ (Rev. 14:15-16). The imagery depicts a field whose crop is
completely ready for harvesting, here indicating the harvest of final judgment
on unbelieving mankind. Not until the
angel notifies Him that the harvest is ripe, will Christ come to earth and
execute judgment. God’s sovereign
purpose is to allow sin to reach its full evil limits, to run its complete
destructive course.
“Second,
the Lord is waiting for all those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of
life to be saved. There must be the
coming in of ‘the fulness of the Gentiles’ (Rom 11:25), the gathering in of
Gentile saints into the church during the present age. It is also necessary for ‘all Israel [to] be
saved’ (v. 26), for all the believing sons of Abraham to be brought into the kingdom
by faith in their Messiah and King.
“Peter
declares, ‘Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the
Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as s one
count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but
for all to come to repentance’ (2 Pet. 3:8-9).
Like scientific uniformitarians, who believe that natural laws have
always and will always operate in exactly the same way they operate now,
later-day religious scoffers will assume that because God has not yet judged
the world He never will. ‘It escapes
their notice,’ however, Peter goes on to say, ‘that by the word of God the
heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water’
(vv. 5-6). The mockers will foolishly
ignore the most catastrophic upheaval the world has yet experienced, in which
every human being on earth was killed except for Noah and his family.
“In
Matthew 24-25 Jesus addresses those who will be alive during the generation of
the Tribulation (Matthew 24:34). But
believers today should be prepared for the Lord’s coming in the rapture of the
church, in which the Lord takes them to heaven, just as believers in the end
time should be prepared for His appearing in power and glory to establish the
millennial kingdom.
“To
the church at Rome Paul wrote these sobering words:
[You know] the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from
sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at
hand. Let us therefore lay aside the
deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in
carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in
strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts (Rom.
13:11-14).
“Paul commended the first generation church in
Corinth for ‘awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor.
1:7), and he reminded the Philippian believers that ‘our citizenship is in
heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ
(Phil. 3:20). The writer of Hebrews
admonished believers, ‘Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and
good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near’
(Heb. 10:24-25).
“James’s counsel is, ‘Be patient; strengthen your
hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand’ (James 5:8). Peter wrote, ‘The end of all things is at hand;
therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer’ (1
Pet. 4:7), and John declared, ‘Children it is the last hour, and just as you
heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from
this we know that it is the last hour’ (1 John 2:18). And the last words spoken directly by Jesus
in Scripture are ‘Yes, I am coming quickly’ (Rev. 22:20).”
With
these last words the 24th chapter of Matthew is now finished, and
Lord willing I will begin to look at the 25th chapter of Matthew
tomorrow.
2/15/2024 11:00 AM
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