SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/30/2024 9:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Inheritance of the Saved”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 25:34-40
Message of the verses: “34 "Then the
King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For
I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you
gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked,
and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you
came to Me.’ 37 "Then the righteous
will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty,
and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger,
and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or
in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I
say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even
the least of them, you did it to Me.’”
I will say as we begin looking at this first of two
sub-points that we will be camping out on these verses for a few days, as there
will be a fair amount of commentary on them, but we are actually coming to the
end of chapter 25 as the next sub-point will be the last in this great sermon
that Jesus gave to His disciples not long before He would go to the cross to
pay for our sins.
We
have seen Jesus call Himself the Son of Man at the beginning of this section in
Matthew 25, but now Jesus here reveals unequivocally that the Son of Man who
sits on the glorious throne as seen in verse 31 is also the Son of God, the
divine King. Then after his subjects are
separated, “the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed
of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world.” You may ask who these believers are, and you must remember that we are
talking about the end of the Tribulation period when according to Revelation
chapter 19 Jesus has now returned to planet earth and the first thing that He
will do is to separate the sheep from the goats which is where we are at now in
Matthew 25. These will be the believers
who have survived the holocaust of the Tribulation, and then they will be
ushered alive into the millennial kingdom, which has been prepared for them from the foundation of the
world. Now think for a moment
about that last part of the previous sentence which I have highlighted, think
about what that means and you must come up with the sovereignty of God as He
graciously chose those who are being talked about even before the world came
into existence. Don’t ask me to explain
it, for I certainly cannot, but I can read it and believe it and be thankful
for it, for it has happened to me a little more than fifty years ago and I am
still in awe that it did, and I still desire to serve the Lord in the way that He
has called me to serve Him.
John
MacArthur writes the following to clarify some important issues: “Doubtlessly anticipating the
salvation-by-works interpretations that would be made of verses 35-45, the Lord
made clear that believers will not inherit the kingdom based on good deeds they
will have or will not have performed on earth.
Their inheritance was determined countless ages ago, even from the
foundation of the world. Those who enter
the kingdom will not do so on the basis of the service they have performed for
Christ but on the basis of their being blessed by the Father because of their
trust in His Son. They will in no way
earn a place in the kingdom. A child
does not earn an inheritance but receives it on the basis of his being in the
family. In exactly the same way, a
believer does not earn his way into the kingdom of God but receives it as his rightful
inheritance as a child of God and a fellow heir with Jesus Christ (Rom.
8:16-17).” Now let us look at these very
important verses from Romans: “16 The
Spirit Himself testifies with
our spirit that we are children of God,17 and if children,
heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with
Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
Lord willing we will continue to look at what the
Lord has for us as we continue to look at these verses from the 25th
chapter of Matthew tomorrow. Thanks for
visiting the place where I write my blogs and the Holy Spirit then sends them
out into all the world to be a witness to the grace of God just as Jesus told
His disciples right before He was on His way back to heaven. but you will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’” I know that I am not one of His disciples,
but I am one of His children and I believe with all my heart that according to
Ephesians 2:10 that He has called me to write these Spiritual Diaries so that I
can grow in grace, and for the Holy Spirit to send them around the world where
over 630,000 have ben read, and all I can say to that is Praise the Lord.
3/30/2024 9:39 AM
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