Thursday, May 30, 2024

PT-2 "Strength" (Matt. 45b-46)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/30/2024 7:08 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  PT-2 “Strength”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 26:45b-46

 

            Message of the verses:  “Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Arise, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!

 

            I wrote about my love for Israel in our last SD and gave you some portions of from my prayer list and some verses, but I left one important verse out and it is actually three verses written right at the beginning of looking at when God called Abram, later to rename Abraham.  God says the following in Genesis 12:1-3 “1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3  And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’” (Italics added)

 

            You can go through history to find out the peoples, and the nations who treated Israel badly just because of who they were and in the end will find that God curses them.  In our study of the book of Matthew I talked about the awful punishment that Judas would receive because of what He did to Christ in betraying Him.  I think that there is another modern day Jew who will, in my opinion will receive great punishment in hell if he does not repent and that would be George Soros, a Jew who has turned His back on the Jews in his effort to make a one world government, something that the Bible prophecies will happen.

 

            John MacArthur writes “the word behold is used to call attention to something.  As Jesus walked back to the three disciples, the men coming to arrest Him were already within sight.  In fact, they arrived ‘while He was still speaking’ (v. 47).  As the approached, Jesus could make out the Roman soldiers from Fort Antonia and the chief priests and elders.  Most clearly of all, He could see Judas, who led the motley contingent.”

 

            Jesus had spent, I suppose, several hours in prayer to His Father where we read that this is the only time in Scripture where He calls God “My Father.”  The Father and the angels who were sent to Him gave Jesus the strength that He needed as He was tempted by Satan who was trying to get Jesus to avoid the cross, and not the temptation was over because of prayer and the strength given to Him by this angel.  Jesus after all was sweating great drops of blood which could have killed Him if not for the strengthening of the angel.  Now the time has come for the Lord to move forward with the most gracious event ever to happen on the face of this earth, and that is that Jesus will soon be sacrificed for the sins of the world, for we read that with sadness Jesus said “The hour is at hand.”  Jesus was not sad because He was unwilling to face the cross but because He was about to become sin.  And His sadness was made the more bitter because His beloved disciples would not stand with Him as He gave His all for them. MacArthur writes “With a strength made even more magnificent by its contrast with their weakness, the Son of Man graciously submitted to being betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

 

            I will now quote two more paragraphs from MacArthur’s commentary and then will, Lord willing try and finish this tomorrow.  “There was nothing more that Jesus needed to do and nothing more the disciples were willing to do.  ‘Arise,’ Jesus therefore said, ‘Let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!’  Rather than being weakened and deterred by the temptations, Jesus became stronger and more resolved; and instead of waiting for His enemies to come to Him, He went out to meet them.

 

            “With the courage of invincibility, Jesus had made the ultimate and final act of commitment to His heaven Father, who He knew would raise Him from the dead on the third day.  As He moved toward the crowd who came to arrest Him, He also resolutely moved toward the cross.  ‘For the joy set before Him [He} endured the cross, despising the shame.’ (Heb. 12:2).”

 

            I just want to say one more time that it was Jesus Christ who was in control of all that is happening during this time when He would be crucified, and not those who thought they were in control, for if they would have been in control Jesus would not have been crucified and died at the exact time the Passover Lambs were slain.

 

5/30/2024 7:38 AM

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