Those in Darkness (1 John 1:6)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/31/2024 10:00 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                               Focus:  “Those in Darkness”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                           Reference:  1 John 1:6

 

            Message of the verse:  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;”

 

            Now to say that a person is in darkness would mean that they are not a true believer, and so John is writing some of these verses in this first chapter of 1 John to those who are not believers, those who walk in darkness.  They claimed to have fellowship with God, to share common aspects of life with Him, that is eternal life.  I want to look at John 17:3 “"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”  Now back to our look at 1 John 1:6, However, that claim is meaningless if one continues to walk in the darkness.  Walk refers to manner of life or conduct.  I have a list of verses that goes along with this last sentence:  Rom. 8:4; cf. 13:3; Eph. 4:1; Col. 1:10;; see also Deut. 10:12-13; Ps. 119:1; Mic. 6:8.  Now it is there that genuine salvation is manifest, not in a mere profession that one possesses eternal life.  There are some people that you talk to about how to be born-again and they will tell you that that happened to them at an earlier time in their life, and then you can see from their life that there is no fruit.  To profess one thing and live in contradiction to it is to lie and not practice the truth.  MacArthur writes:  “Jesus indicted the Jews’ superficial earthly religion by declaring to them, ‘The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!’ (Matt. 6:22-23).  In this analogy, the Lord argued from the lesser to the greater.  If it is a negative thing to be in the dark physically (blind), it is much worse to be in the dark spiritually.  John in his gospel taught that Jesus was the true light for a sin-darkened world (John 1:4-5; cf. 8:12).  But since sinful humanity prefers darkness over light (John 3:19-20), no one who claims to be a Christian and yet lives in darkness (meaning that they continually practice evil deeds) is actually saved (1 John 3:4, 9, cf. Matt. 7:17-18; 13:38; John 8:42-44).”

 

            Now we will look at James 1:22-25 to show that those who really embrace the truth heed what James has written here:

 

22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

 

            The truth is that believers posses God’s life and that makes them new creatures in Christ made for good works, and have the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14). MacArthur concludes:  “Thus they cannot ignore the existence of personal iniquity and walk in darkness (cf. Col 1:12-14).  No matter what anyone claims for himself, the genuineness of faith can always be seen in one’s life by the love of righteousness (Matt. 7:15-20).”

 

8/31/2024 10:25 PM

Soil Disturbance (Matthew 27:51b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/31/2024 8:28 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                  Focus:  “Soil Disturbance”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 27:51b

 

            Message of the verses:  “and the earth shook; and the rocks were split”

 

            Today’s SD brings the fifth miracle that occurred during the crucifixion which was a supernaturally caused earthquake.  This happened immediately after Jesus died and the Temple veil was torn in two from top to bottom that the earth shook; and the rocks were split.  We can say that this makes another statement about God’s Son to the world, and especially to His chosen people that the Father brought a devastating earthquake to Jerusalem and the surrounding area.  I guess my question is why not many people believed that through these miracles from the Lord that something very special was going on.

 

            In his commentary John MacArthur goes over some things from the Old Testament.  “Again the Old Testament gives insight into the significance o the occurrence.  When God appeared to Moses on Mt. Sinai, ‘the whole mountain quaked violently’ (Ex. 19:18), and when He appeared to Elijah on a mountain, ‘a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord,…and after the wind an earthquake’ (1 Kings 19:11).  David sang of the earth’s shaking and trembling when the Lord became angry (2 Sam. 22:8; Ps. 18:7; cf. 77:18).  Isaiah spoke of the Lord’s punishing His people through ‘thunder and earthquake and loud noise’ (Isa. 29:6), and Jeremiah of His venting His wrath on the nations of the earth by causing it to quake (Jer. 10:10; cf. Nah. 1:5).  The book of Revelation tells of God’s causing the stars to fall to earth, and of mountains and islands being moved  out of their places’ during the final judgment (6:13-14).”

 

            When God made the earth we do not hear of any earthquakes, and that is because all was perfect in His creation.  I will give you my opinion as to when earthquakes began and why they began.  I think that when God created the earth there was no mountains on it and all the land mass was in one place.  So what changed?  Well in my opinion all the trouble came with the world-wide flood found in Genesis chapter six.  God was judging sin through this flood and we read that the water came from both the earth and from the sky.  I don’t believe that there were any clouds or any rain before the flood as there was a vapor barrier around the earth that protected the earth from the harmful rays.  So you have water coming from above and from below and the water from below, in my opinion is what cushioned the earth, but once that water was gone the earth then came into the different continents that we see today.  Since the water that cushioned the earth was gone then the earth is unstable and earthquakes now happen.  It seems that God cursed the very earth that He made and part of how He is doing this is through earthquakes.  “20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Romans 8:20-22).   

 

            Let us now look at Hebrews 12:26-27 showing of God’s judgment on unbelievers “26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN." 27 This

expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

 

            MacArthur concludes by writing “At the cross Jesus earned the right to take the title deed to the earth from the hand of His Father (Rev. 5:9-10).  Therefore when God shook the earth at the death of His Son, He gave the world a foretaste of what He will do when one day He shakes the earth in judgment at the coming of the King of kings.  Because Jesus became ‘obedient the point of death, even death on a cross,’ His heavenly Father ‘highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil. 2:8-11).”

 

            If you are reading this SD and realize that you are not a true child of God you can see from these verses in Philippians that every person ever born will one day every knee will bow before Him.  It is far better to bow the knee before Him in your heart now and accept the forgiveness that He provided by dying on a cross almost 2000 years ago.  Take the time to confess to the Lord that you are a sinner that you were born a sinner and because of that you sin.  Then ask the Lord to come into your life and save you and then walk with you for the rest of your life and you then at that point become a true born-again child of God.

 

8/31/2024 9:08 AM

PT-3 "The Certainty of Sin" (1 John 1:6, 8, 10)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/30/2024 7:35 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                    Focus: PT-3 “The Certainty of Sin”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  1 John 1:6, 8, 10

 

            Message of the verses:  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;…If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us….If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

 

            I want to begin by quoting the last short paragraph from my last SD:  “Now in the next SD I will again pick up on what the apostle John faced, as he faced a similar situation in writing to his audience.”

 

            The things that the OT prophets faced the apostle John faced in a similar situation in the churches to whom he wrote this letter to.  The things that were flooding into Ephesus and other cities and churches of Asia Minor were deceitful, sin-denying false teachers.  MacArthur writes “In addition to the heresies of Docetism (that claimed that Christ’s ‘divine spirit’ descended upon the human Jesus at His baptism but departed just prior to His crucifixion), John had to contend with Greek philosophical dualism (the basis of Gnosticism)—a view that denied the reality of sin and evil.  Those who held to this mystical, elitist philosophy argued the spiritual was always good and the physical was always bad; they therefore created an artificial dichotomy between the spiritual realm and the physical world—contending that spiritual realities were all that mattered, and that what was done in the flesh (including sin) was a nonissue.  As John encountered this heresy, he had to unmask those who denied sin’s existence and thereby sidestepped their own responsibility for it and its consequences.”  I mentioned at the beginning of this study that it is important to study the letter to the Colossians because similar things are going on in the church today. 

 

            I want to now look at how John divided those who claimed to be in the fellowship but rejected the truth into three similar but also distinct categories: 1) those in darkness,  2) those in deception, and 3) those who defame God.  MacArthur writes about these:  “All three groups of people either willfully rejected or completely ignored the reality that true believers and sin are incompatible.  “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:2).  Later in that chapter he added, ‘But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness’ (vv. 17-18; cf. Eph. 2:1-5).  By refusing to repent, these sin-denying false professors revealed that they were outside of God’s plan of salvation, which begins with election (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4, 11); includes redemption (1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:13; Heb 9:12), sanctification (1 Cor. 6:11, Eph. 5:26-27; Phil. 2:12-13), and spiritual growth (John 16:13; 17:17; cf. 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Tim. 3:15); and culminates with glorification (2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Thess. 2:14; 2 Tim. 2:10).”

 

            Lord willing in the next SD we will look at “Those in Darkness (1 John 1:6).

8/30/2024 7:59 PM

 

 

 

Sanctuary Devastation (Matthew 27:51a

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/30/2024 7:43 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                        Focus:  “Sanctuary Devastation”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 27:51a

 

            Message of the verse:  “And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

 

            I know that I mentioned this in the last SD, but I want to give some more details on this as I look to see what MacArthur has to say about this first part of verse 51.

 

            What we are looking at here is the fourth miracle that occurred during the crucifixion and this was certainly divine devastation of the sanctuary, as we read the veil of the temple was torn in two.

 

            MacArthur writes “Naos (temple) does not refer to the Temple as a whole but to the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies where God dwelt in His symbolic presence.  A huge woven veil separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, and Josephus reports that this massive curtain was predominantly blue and was ornately decorated.”

 

            Now what I am about to write I have to believe that I have written about this in another SD, and that is once a year the high priest was allowed to pass through the veil on the Day of Atonement to sprinkle blood on the altar for the sins of the people, if I remember correctly this was sin covered for the past year, and that only for a brief period of time was the High Priest in the Holy of Holies.  I have heard or read about the High Priest had a rope around his leg in case the Lord would kill him, then no one would have to go in and retrieve his body.  Later on I remember reading that this did not happen and in my opinion I believe that that later is the truth.  Now I want to go on to talk more about this very holy place.  Now because, like God’s presence in the Holy of Holies, even that special sacrifice was only symbolic, as this was a ritual that had to be repeated every year, anticipating the on, true sacrifice for sins that the Son of God Himself one day would offer.  As we have looked at what went on while Jesus was on the cross, and think about it as much of this was prophecy that was written about in the Old Testament which was now fulfilled, the one must wonder why more people did not believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah that came from God.  I realize that people did not have Bibles like we have today as many believers today have Bibles on their laptop and even on their Smart Phone.  Now as I think about that it again makes me wonder why more people today don’t understand that they are sinners in need of salvation.  One of the big reasons that I post these Spiritual Diaries has to do with getting the Word of God out by putting them onto my blogs.  What I am about to put on this SD is the last item from my prayer list that I use probably about 5-6 times a week and it comes as a burden from my former Pastor who is now the president of a what is called Baptist Mid Missions, and if you want to know more about this 100+ year old organization you cans search BMM.org and you can then read about it.  “27. Pray 938, that is from Matthew 9:38 “"Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”  I pray that the Lord will work in the hearts of His Church to send new missionaries out into the field to do work for the cause of Christ.  I pray for those who are living in their homes that they too will be ready to give out the good news of the Gospel to those that the Holy Spirit brings into their lives.  Use me to do this in our neighborhood, and around the world through the blogs that I write.”

 

            MacArthur writes “When Christ gave up His spirit, that once-for-all sacrifice was completed and the need for a veil no longer existed.  By coming to the Son, any man could now come to God directly, without need of a priest, sacrifice, or ritual.  Consequently, the veil was torn in two from top to bottom by God’s miraculous act, because the barrier of sin was forever removed for those who put their trust in the Son as Lord and Savior.

 

            “By rending the Temple veil, God was saying, in effect, ‘In the death of My Son, Jesus Christ, there is total access into My holy presence.  He has paid the full price of sin for everyone who trusts in Him, and I now throw open My holy presence to all who will come in His name.’  The writer of Hebrews admonished, ‘Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need’ (Heb. 4:16).”

 

            Now I believe that I mentioned something in the last SD about the Temple being filled at the time when this miracle from God happened and so the people who were in the holy place would have seen this miracle take place, but would they know why it took place is the question that needs to be answered, and my thought is that they probably did not know why it happened.  There were as much as a million people attending the Passover celebration in Jerusalem at this time when Jesus was crucified, and that is a lot of people for a small city like Jerusalem.  I am sure that many of them heard about this, and perhaps were themselves wondering why this happened.

 

            MacArthur writes “Although the Temple was not destroyed until some forty years later, in A. D. 70, the sacrificial system of Israel and its attendant priesthood ceased to have even symbolic value when the veil was torn in two and the Holy of Holies was exposed.  The ceremonies and priestly functions continued until the Temple was destroyed, but their divine significance ended when Christ died, as the Old Covenant was abrogated and the Ne inaugurated.”

 

            There are more miracles to talk about as we continue this section of Matthew 27.

 

8/30/2024 8:21 AM

 

PT-2 "The Certainty of Sin" (1 John 1:6, 8, 10)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2024 10:45 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                    Focus: PT-2 “The Certainty of Sin”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  1 John 1:6, 8, 10

 

            Message of the verses:  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;…If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us….If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

 

            I want to pick up where I left off from yesterday’s SD by writing about the people of Judah and what they did in the time of Malachi’s day as they were equally adept at denying their sin.  (You will need to look at the SD from yesterday on this section of Scripture to best understand where I am going with this tonight.)  God had given them very clear and detailed instructions concerning what offerings were acceptable to Him which is seen in Lev. 1:1-7:38, as you will have to look at this by yourself as it is a very long section of Scripture.  Yet they continued to present defiled food and defective animals to the Lord and then they acted surprised (thinking that they had done nothing wrong) when the Lord through the prophet Malachi, confronted them about their clear disobedience as we will read about this in Malachi 1:6-8: “6 "’A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’ 7 “You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the LORD is to be despised.’ 8 “But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?" says the LORD of hosts.”

 

            MacArthur writes “God then moved from an expression of displeasure to a warning of severe judgment on the religious leaders, the priests:

 

1 "And now this commandment is for you, O priests. 2  "If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name," says the LORD of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart. 3  "Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. 4  "Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi," says the LORD of hosts” Mal. 2:1-4).

 

            Now I have one more paragraph to quote from MacArthur’s commentary:  “the Lord’s rebuke was necessarily harsh because the people had disobeyed Him so grievously (1:11-16) and yet were acting as though they had done nothing wrong.  They had arbitrarily (and wrongly) excused their wicked behavior, to the point that they audaciously accused God of being unjust and unfair to them (v. 17).  In a similar sense, there are many today who think God would be brutally unjust for sending any human being to hell.  It is not until people accept both the absolute holiness of God and full responsibility for their sin that they admit God has the right to judge and punish them (cf. Ezra 9:13; Neh. 9:33; Luke 15:21; 23:41).”

 

            Now in the next SD I will again pick up on what the apostle John faced, as he faced a similar situation in writing to his audience. 

 

8/29/2024 11:09 PM

 

 

Self-Giving Death (Matt. 27:50)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2024 8:11 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  “Self-Giving Death”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 27:50

 

            Message of the verse:  “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.”

 

            I wonder what the Lord was feeling at this moment.  I have to believe that success in doing what He was called to do may have been on His mind.  Perhaps relief since His pain was over.  Jesus died the death which I believe is different than when a believer dies in that He paved the way for us not to have to go through what He went through, and so the death that believer’s die is called “sleep.”

 

            What we are looking at as we think about this verse is a third miracle of the cross which was Christ’s self-giving death, and the Son’s willing sacrifice of Himself for the sins of the world which was in obedience to His Father’s will.

 

            We can see the fact that Jesus cried out again with a loud voice from our verse similar as He did in verse 46 “46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice,

saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?’”  Let us look also at Mark 15:37 “And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.”  Next Luke 23:46 “And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT." Having said this, He breathed His last.”  Back to our verse and these words demonstrated considerable physical strength even after the beatings, scourging, crown of thorns, nail wounds, and hinging in agony for several hours.  We can see from the different texts on this part of Jesus’ life that He did not just gradually fade away, His life ebbing little by little until gone.  Even now Jesus made it evident that He was not at the point of utter exhaustion and that He had resources to stay alive if He so desired, for we know that when we look at the words “It is finished,” that Jesus had complete control of his time of death, and once all was accomplished He could say those words “It is finished,” which means paid in full.  Think about that for a moment knowing once He said that if you are a true born-again believer that you know that Jesus paid it all for you and that you owe your life to be serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

            MacArthur writes “The last words the Lord cried out from the cross were first, ‘It is finished (John 19:30) indicating that the work His Father had sent Him to accomplish was complete.  Then, once again addressing God as His Father, He said, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit’ (Luke 23:46).

 

            “Aphiemi (yielded up) has the basic meaning of letting go or sending away, indicating an act of volition.  Jesus’ life was not taken from Him by men, but rather He surrendered His spirit by the conscious act of His own sovereign will.  As He had explained to the Twelve, no one could or would take His life from Him.  ‘I lay it down on My own initiative,’ He said.  ‘I have the authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again’ (John 10:18).”

            We have just noted that Jesus’ ability to speak from the cross in a loud voice indicated a reserve of energy unheard of for a person in His physical condition.  However, even in light of His severe bodily condition, Jesus died much sooner than normal.  Now from Scripture we learned that when Joseph of Arimathea had informed Pilate of Jesus’ death, and asked for His body, the governor was surprised and asked a centurion to give verification (Mark 15:43-45).  Now remember that the time of Jesus’ death had to be the same time that the Passover Lamb died, which I believe was 3 PM.  Another thing that I was thinking about which we probably will look at later and that was that the very large and very strong curtain between the Holy place and the Holy of Holies was split from top to bottom when Christ died showing that all could come into the Holy of Holies since sin had been paid for.  I was wondering what those people who were in the Holy place thought when they saw the curtain torn in to from top to bottom.

 

            MacArthur concludes “On the cross the Father judged the sin of the world that the Son took upon Himself, and the Son, who divinely controls living and dying, willingly surrendered His life as penalty for that sin.”

 

            Lord willing, tomorrow we will look at Matthew 27:51a “Sanctuary Devastation,” which will speak of what I just wrote about happened with the curtain.

 

8/29/2024 8:47 AM

 

           

PT-1 "The Certainty of Sin" (1 John 1:6, 8, 10)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2024 8:54 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                   Focus: PT-1 “The Certainty of Sin”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  1 John 1:6, 8, 10

 

            Message of the verses:  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;…If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us….If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

 

            Just a little personal things from me that I am doing now to help this 77 year old man to live a healthier life.  I have 20 visits on a machine that works in conjunction with my heart to help (for lack of a better term) push my blood through my body in order to get more blood to my brain.  There are a number of things that this is suppose to help and one of them is memory.  I have had three one hour sessions on the machine with another seventeen to go and then I hope that this will work on my body to help me remember things better along with other benefits.  At any rate I have time to listen to some of John MacArthur’s sermons while laying there and I listened to one from 1 John chapter one, the first seven verses.  One of the things that caught my attention is that what he had to say about the ninth verse which I will not get into for perhaps a couple of weeks.  All I can say is that I was surprised at what I heard and leave it at that until we get to that section.  (I will try and give an update on the results of my 20 hours on this machine in a later SD.)

 

            We begin this first SD on these verses to talk first about what happened to us at the fall, and ever since the fall, mankind has tried to deny the reality of sin, even though every human being is innately aware of its presence, that is if they are honest with themselves.

 

            Let us look at the following verses from Romans 2:14-16:  “14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”  MacArthur asks in his commentary to compare these verses with Eccles. 7:20; Rom. 5:12; and Galatians 3:22.

 

            If one who has lived in the United States for as long as I have and have been a believer in Jesus Christ for a little over 50 years then they can see that people today minimize and redefine sin, often alleging that the “failures” of their lives and certain “disorders” exist because of how others have treated them.  Well the reason for this is that the victim mentality reigns supreme as popular no matter what may be wrong is not really wrong, but merely a preference of personal freedom.  I can say that social media has been something that has caused this kind of thing to grow.  Now instead of accepting responsibility for their behavior, people demand to be accepted as they are.  Let me at this time go over something that we have just gone over in our Wednesday evening church service from the last chapter of 2 Thessalonians, but remember this is written to believers:  “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame” (2 Thess. 3:14).  Paul is saying that the truth is in this letter and you are to obey it with no excuses.  Now back to our lesson.  MacArthur writes “They reclassify serious and heart issues ‘illnesses’ and ‘addictions’ and try to ‘cure’ them with prescription drugs and psychotherapy.  But because that fails to deal with sin, the actual root cause of the problem, society goes from bad to worse.  In contrast to all that delusion, Jesus taught that every person is sinful at the very core of his or her being:

 

That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:20-23; cf. Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; James 1:15; 4:1).

 

            As mentioned, many in the church today seem to be reluctant to make the diagnosis Jesus did, for fear that they might offend someone or be deemed that they are unloving.  So then sin is explained away in culturally acceptable terms. 

 

            Lord will we will continue to look at this section of verses in the next SD.

 

8/28/2024 9:30 PM

           

PT-3 "Sovereign Departure" (Matt. 27:46-49)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2024 8:49 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-3 “Sovereign Departure”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 27:46-49

 

            Message of the verses:  “46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" 47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." 48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.’”

 

            We ended the last SD writing about how Jesus, for a while cease to know the intimacy of fellowship with His heavenly Father, in a similar way that a child sins ceases for a while to have intimate, normal, loving fellowship with his human father.  And now we want to talk about how at the incarnation there already had been a partial separation between the Father and the Son in order to provide salvation for those who will accept the offer that is given through the death burial and resurrection of God the Son.  Jesus, at the incarnation had been separated from His divine glory and from face-to-face communication with the Father, refusing to hold on to thos divine privileges for His own sake as seen in Phil. 2:6 “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped”  Jesus prayed to the Father in the presence of His disciples, “Glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was” (John 17:5).  MacArthur adds “At the cross His separation from the Father became immeasurably more profound than the humbling incarnation during the thirty-three years of His earthly life.”

 

            MacArthur goes on to explain “As already mentioned, the mystery of that separation is far too deep even for the most mature believer to fathom.  But God has revealed the basic truth of it for us to accept and to understand to the limit of our ability under the illumination of His Spirit.  And nowhere in Scripture can we behold the reality of Jesus’ sacrificial death and the anguish of His separation from His Father more clearly and penetratingly than in His suffering on the cross because of sin.  In the midst of being willingly engulfed in our sins and the sins of all men of all time, He withered in anguish not from the lacerations on His back or the thorns that still pierced His head or the nails that held Him to the cross but from the incomparably painful loss of fellowship with heavenly Father that His becoming sin for us had brought.”  I have mentioned before that when Jesus was in the garden praying and the tempter came to tempt Him, trying not to have Jesus go to the cross, for that spelled doom for Satan.  When Jesus was sweating great drops of blood, and His desire was for His disciples to be praying for Him, but they were asleep, that when the angels came to minister to Him because of the anguish that He was in that Jesus then (it’s kind of hard for me to explain in words other than earthly words) that He then knew what must be done and then became ready to accomplish what had been planned for Him in eternity past.  Make no mistake about it that Jesus Christ was in complete control of what was happening to Him, and then remember that He did what He did because He loves you, He loves me, and without His sacrifice on the cross there would be salvation for no one, including those in the Old Testament who had put their trust in God to provide salvation for them, and it happened when Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross, was then buried and rose again on the third day.

 

            “MacArthur goes on to write “Soon after He cried out to God about being forsaken, ‘Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, said, ‘I am thirsty’’ (John 19:28).  As John then makes clear (v. 29), it was at that time that immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed, and gave Him as drink,”

 

            It was probably one of the Roman military guards that was the one who ran to help Jesus by taking a sponge and filling it with sour wine, he hoped temporally to satisfy Jesus thirst.  This sour wine was a cheap wine that had been diluted with a lot of water that workers would drink while working.  The water was not really that good to drink then and so putting a little cheap wine in it made it taste better.  There certainly was not high alcohol content in it.  Reading from John’s gospel we find that the reed that the sponge was attached to was a hyssop branch (John 19:29), which would not have been linger than eighteen inches.  Now in order for such a short branch to reach Jesus’ lips, the horizontal beam of the cross would have had to be rather low to the ground.

 

            MacArthur writes that “Offering the drink to Jesus was perhaps an act of mercy, but it was minimal in its elect and served only to prolong the torture before death brought relief.  But the rest of those standing near the cross used that gesture of kindness as another opportunity to carry their mockery of the Lord still further, saying, ‘Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.’”

 

            Now in reading this last paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary on this section of verses that he is writing about something that I have thought about, and that is that for the past three hours it had been dark, and I believe the reason for darkness was so that no one could have seen how the Father was taking out on Jesus the payment for my sin and for yours.  These people around the cross seemed to think that this was something normal to have darkness in the middle of the day.  I guess that shows how much that the really hated the Lord.  MacArthur writes “Being aware of the many Old Testament associations of unnatural darkness with judgment, it would seem they would at least briefly had considered the possibility that divine judgment was occurring at that very moment.  But the single thought now on their minds was to make Jesus’ death painful and humiliating.  They had no comprehension of the amazing alienation of the Son from the Father.”  I believe that that was more painful for Jesus than the nails and the thorns.

 

8/28/2024 9:28 AM

 

 

 

PT-4 "The Nature of God" (1 John 1:5)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/27/2024 11:17 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-4 “The Nature of God”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                           Reference:  1 John 1:5

 

            Message of the verse:  “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

 

            We begin by looking at some more Scripture and first of all I want to look at John 8:12 “I am the Light of the World, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  Next we can compare this with John 12:45-46 “45 “He who sees Me sees

the One who sent Me. 46 "I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.”  MacArthur adds “God, the source of true light, bestows it on believers in the form of eternal life through His Son, who was the light incarnate.”

 

            He goes on to write “Scripture reveal two fundamental principles that flow from the foundational truth that God is light.  First, light represents the truth of God, as embodied in His Word.  The psalmist wrote these familiar words: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path…The unfolding of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple’ (Ps. 119:105, 130; cf. Prov. 6:23; 2 Peter 1:19).  The light and life of God are inherently connected to the characterized by truth.

 

            “Second, Scripture also links light with virtue and moral conduct.  The apostle Paul instructed the Ephesians, ‘You were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth)’ (Eph. 5:8-9; cf. Isa. 5:20; Rom. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:5-6).

 

            “Those two essential properties of divine light and life are crucial in distinguishing genuine faith from a counterfeit claim.  In one professes to prossess the Light and to dwell in it—to have received eternal life—he will show evidence of spiritual life by his devotion both to truth and to righteousness, as John writes later in this letter:

 

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.  The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.  But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.  (2:9-11; cf Matt. 5:16; 25:34-40; Luke 1:6; 11:28; Rom. 6:17; 16:19; Phil. 1:11; Titus 2:7; James 2:14-20).

 

            “If truth and righteousness are absent from one’s life, that person, no matter what he or she says, does not possess eternal life (Matt. 7:17-18, 21-23; 25:41-46).  They cannot belong to God because in Him there is no darkness at all.  God is absolutely perfect in truth and holiness (Ex. 15:11; 1 Sam. 2:2; Ps. 22:3; 48:10; 71:19; 98:2; Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8; 15:4).  Obviously, believers fall far short of that perfection, but they manifest a godlike desire for and continual striving toward heavenly truth and righteousness (cf. Phil. 3:7-16).”

 

“7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11  in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

 

    “15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; 16  however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.”

 

8/27/2024 11:43 PM

PT-2 "Sovereign Departure" (Matt. 27:46-49)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/27/2024 9:39 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-2 “Sovereign Departure”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 27:46-49

 

            Message of the verses:  “46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" 47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." 48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.’”

 

            I want to begin by looking at what Habakkuk declared of God in Hab. 1:13 “Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor.”  Now I want you to think about how difficult it was for God to forgive our sins, and part of that problem can be seen in this verse from Habakkuk.  It was hard for the Father to send His Son to earth for those 33 years, it was hard for the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to leave His home in heaven and be away from His Father for 33 years.  It was hard for the Son to get Himself ready to become the Sacrifice for sin as we saw that He sweat great drops of blood before the angels came to help Him with this issue.  However once He got His mind ready for what He was called to do, that is be crucified for our sins then He went through with it all the way to the end.  I mentioned it was hard for both the Father and the Son to be separated from each other, and even harder for the Son to have His Father take out all the sins of the world that were ever sinned as He became sin for us that we may have His righteousness.  This took place the last three hours that Christ was on the cross, and you have to look at all of the gospels to understand this as some of them do not speak of this.  Jesus went through great agony, the greatest agony while the Father took out the punishment on the Son for what you and I deserve.  He could not even call God His Father at that time as He said what David wrote in Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.”  That term “My God” is seen four times in Psalm 22, twice in the first verse.

 

            John MacArthur writes that “Jesus did not die as a martyr to a righteous cause or simply as an innocent man wrongly accused and condemned.  Nor, as some suggest, did He die as a heroic gesture against man’s inhumanity to man.  The Father could have looked favorably on such selfless deaths and those.  But because Jesus died as a substitute sacrifice for the sins of the world, the righteous heavenly Father had to judge Him fully according to that sin.

 

            “The Father forsook the Son because the Son too upon Himself ‘our transgressions,…our iniquities’ (Isa. 53:5).  Jesus ‘was delivered up because of our transgressions’ (Rom. 4:25) and ‘died for our sins accordingly to the Scriptures’ (1 Cor. 15:3).  He ‘who knew no sin [became] sin on our behalf’ (2 Cor. 5:21) and became ‘a curse for us’ (Gal. 3:13).  ‘He himself bore our sins in His body on the cross’ (1 Peter 2:24), ‘died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust’ (1 Pet. 3:18), and became ‘the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 4:10).”

 

            Now Jesus Christ not only bore man’s sin but actually became sin on man’s behalf, in order that those who believe in Him might be saved from the penalty of their sin.  Now as He bore our sin and became sin for us we can understand that Jesus never did sin, and the reason that He never did sin was because it was impossible for Him to sin because of who He was and is.

 

            Jesus came to teach men perfectly about God and who God is as He Himself was the perfect example of God’s holiness and righteousness.  MacArthur adds “But as He Himself declared the supreme reason for His coming to earth was not to teach or to be an example but ‘to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

 

            “When Christ was forsaken by the Father, their separation was not one of nature, essence, or substance.  Christ did not in any sense of degree cease to exist as God or as a member of the Trinity.  He did not cease to be the Son, any more that a child who sins severely against his human father ceases to be his child.  But Jesus did for a while cease to know the intimacy of fellowship with His heavenly Father, just as a disobedient child ceases for a while to have intimate, normal, loving fellowship with his human father.”

 

            These are very interesting truths that we as believers need to understand, as this shows part of the complexity of How our sins were taken care of by Christ and the Father.

 

8/27/2024 10:17 AM

 

PT-3 "The Nature of God" (1 John 1:5)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/26/2024 11:19 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-3 “The Nature of God”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                           Reference:  1 John 1:5

 

            Message of the verse:  “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

 

            I have been talking about the truth that God is light and we have been looking at different verses in both the Old and New Testaments to show this truth, and these foregoing passages describe the significance of divine light, they do not define it.  Let us now look at Psalm 36:9, which will define it: “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.”  Let us compare a verse from 1 Peter to this verse in Psalm 36:9 “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” (1 Peter 2:9).  MacArthur comments on this verse in Psalm; “Here the psalmist employed a Hebrew parallelism, using two statements to say the same thing.  He equates light and life—God is light in the sense that He is life, and He is the source and sustainer of both physical and spiritual life. 

 

            “John expressed that truth in the prologue to his gospel:

 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. 9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:1-13).  John MacArthur writes “(cf. 2:23-3:21; Col.1:15-17).  I will post these verses as I end this SD with them.

 

            23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. 24  But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25  and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

             1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2  this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." 3  Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 4  Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?" 5  Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9  Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? 11 “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. 12  "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. 14  "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15  so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 16  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17  "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18  "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God’” (John 2:23-3:21).

 

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16  For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Col. 1:15-17).

 

8/26/2024 11:43 PM