SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/8/2024 11:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Preparation of Sovereign Grace”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 26:2
Message of the verse: “2 ‘You know that
after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be
handed over for crucifixion.’”
As I look at this second verse in the 26th
chapter of Matthew the first thing that I think about is actually sadness
because of what Jesus Christ had to go through to pay for my sins. Next I think of happiness because of what He
did do in order for me to become a part of His family, a part of His bride, the
Church. So what are we really looking at
in this verse? Well my thoughts are
judgment and also salvation, and this is what I have been studying in
preparation of my Sunday school lessons that I am preparing now from the book
of Zechariah chapters 9-14.
John
MacArthur begins this section by writing “In His incarnation, Jesus voluntarily
limited the use of His omniscience, His glory, and certain other attributes of
His deity (cf. Phil. 2:7-8 which says ‘7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of
a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross.’) In His humility and self-imposed limitations as
a man, Jesus taught only the divine truth that His heavenly Father revealed to
Him. ‘The Father Himself who sent Me,’ Jesus said, ‘has given Me commandment,
what to say and what to speak’ (John 12:49; cf. Matt. 24:36).”
In our study of Matthew we have seen that Jesus was
preparing His disciples for His upcoming death by crucifixion, but they were
unable to understand this truth. I think
that they did not really want to understand it because they did not want to see
the Lord Jesus Christ die, but continue to be on planet earth to teach them and
also to defeat the Romans so that Israel would then rule over the earth as God
had planned for this to happen in the Old Testament prophecies. The problem was that there were prophecies of
his death as seen in places like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 52-53. They had no idea about the church age as this
was not spoken of in the Old Testament despite what some people in our world
today have said that it was in there.
Jesus
knew, I my thoughts that He knew this from eternity past that it was the Father’s
time for Him to die, and He not only declared again that He must suffer and be
crucified but then He actually specified that His death was only just two days away,
at the beginning of the Passover. At
that divinely appointed time the Son of Man would be delivered up for
crucifixion.
MacArthur states that “Unbelieving skeptics have
long tried to explain Jesus’ death as a quirk of fate, the unintended
termination of a well-meaning revolution that was discovered and crushed or the
sad end of the delusions of a madman.
Others picture Jesus as a visionary whose dreams were ahead of the age
in which He lived, or as a prophet who overstated His claims and thereby roused
the ire of the religious establishment.
But such assertions do not square with the gospel accounts and are
blasphemous.
“As
already noted, Jesus had predicted at least three times previously that He
would suffer to the death but would rise again.
He had even indicated that His death would be in Jerusalem and that He
would rise on the third day. He was on a
divine timetable, and no human plans or power could cause that timetable to vary
in a single detail. ‘No one has taken
[My life] away from Me,’ He declared, ‘but I lay it down on My own
initiative. I have authority to lay it
down, and I have authority to take it up again’ (John 10:18). When Pilate said to Jesus, ‘Do You not know
that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?’ Jesus answered, ‘You would have no authority
over Me, unless it had been given you from above’ (John 19:10-11).
4/8/2024 11:56 AM
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